


Closer to the Start

by dinkitandrhinkit



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: A whole mess of feelings, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, F/M, Getting Together, Happy Ending for Everyone, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know how to explain all the feelings, M/M, Not futuristic though, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-02-15 13:03:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13031703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinkitandrhinkit/pseuds/dinkitandrhinkit
Summary: After Rhett begins to act strangely, Jessie leaves. Link tries his best to look after his friend, until certain feelings bubble up and everything turns upside down.Has a happy ending for everyone involved, I swear.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Background and scene setting. Rhett is falling apart and Link is trying his best to help him, but at what cost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. I'm new here. Thank you for taking the chance and reading this. I appreciate it.
> 
> I own none of the people in this work of utter fiction. No offense is meant to anyone.

Ever since Jessie had walked out on him, Rhett had become a different person, or so it seemed to Link. Rhett was, in general, the warier and outgoing of the two best friends. Where Link was sometimes reckless and jumped in without thinking, often getting himself hurt in the process, Rhett thought everything through, sometimes to his own detriment. They balanced each other and it helped them work as easily and naturally as they did together.

However, since he’d been 'single', Rhett’d been going out most nights, drinking and goodness knows what else. Link had done his best to support and console his oldest friend, inviting him over to his house for movies and even going with him occasionally on his nightly binges, trying to curb his destruction the best he could or at least dragging him home when he had so much to drink that he could barely walk.

But Link still had a family that he needed to get home to. He couldn’t afford to go out every night and stumble into work the next day, reeking of booze and random girl's perfume. It was bad enough that Rhett had taken to calling him at ungodly times of the night, drunk and incoherent. Eventually, Link had to sleep in the spare room, as the ringing woke Christy up. It wasn't fair to her, but Link couldn't bear to leave his friend to go through this alone. At least not at first.

It broke Link’s heart, but after two months he had to stop answering when he called. It wasn't helping either of them, and while Link dreaded what Rhett would do without his help and endless support, there wasn’t much else he could do, short of staging an intervention. But knowing Rhett, all a confrontation would accomplish would be to drive the ever stubborn and proud Rhett away from him, knowing that as destructive as his coping mechanism was, it was helping him cope. Link shuddered to think what losing both his wife and his best friend in the span of a few months would do to Rhett. He couldn't just walk away and let him suffer alone. He would gladly put himself in harms way to keep Rhett with him and as protected as possible. Rhett was worth it and he had saved Link more times than he could count. Link owed him.

One day, about three months into this destructive routine, Link called Jessie, on one of Rhett’s particularly bad days, practically begging her to come back. Link had known Jessie almost as long as he'd known Christy, and they'd been as close as any friends were, simply by virtue of her being the better half of his other half. Since she'd left, Link hadn't spoken to her, which felt unnatural to him. It wasn't the same as if he'd stopped talking to Rhett, but it was still losing a dear and close friend. She was almost a sister and he missed her.

This phone call was how he discovered that even one phone call was more than Rhett had done to get her to come back. He'd just let her walk out without a single protest and Link was stumped as to why.

Link had asked her why, what had changed, what did he do? But he couldn’t get the story out of either of them, and neither could Christy, who, unlike Link, had maintained regular contact with Jessie through the intervening months. Jessie had sounded tired and resigned, a far cry from her usual bubbly personality.

"We just grew apart," She said, with a sigh and a hiccough that might have been a sob.

Link and Christy had both toyed with the idea of getting one of the kids to ask Locke, Shepard or Jessie, but they had yet to sink that low. Yet.

Link was becoming increasingly frustrated and the strain was bleeding over from work - where he was barely holding everything together and the Beasts had started to notice, despite his best efforts - to his home life, until even his dreams were haunted by the gaunt, scruffy, red-eyed, hung-over face of his best friend as he stumbled onto the set every day, tired and empty.

Link was quickly running out of options and he knew that something had to give, sooner or later.

He might have been the brave and reckless one, but he needed Rhett two steps behind him, to catch him if he faltered. What did you do when your rock, your security blanket, suddenly falls apart and leaves you to be the one holding it all together? Link didn't know and if he didn't find out soon, his whole world was going to collapse.

******

Rhett knew it was coming. He’d seen it coming. Hell, he'd caused it, but he didn’t do anything to stop it. Not a damn thing.

Maybe it was a midlife crisis. Now that both the boys had flown the coop, and were adults in their own right - with Shepard having started college last year - he'd started looking at his life and he wasn't 100% certain that he liked what he saw. He'd suddenly become restless within his own life, itching for something to change, wanting to crawl out of his own skin and escape the torture of wanting. Long buried feelings suddenly bubbled up and he'd become distant and distracted from his wife, torn to shreds by the longing for what he wanted and could never have. What he wanted…

The problem was, he couldn’t say that his heart wasn’t in his marriage anymore, not really. He’d always loved her. Would always love her. She was his other half and was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. She had given him two of the other best things, in the two beautiful boys who were quickly growing into amazing men.

The truth was that he just didn’t feel like he’d ever really deserved her. He'd always subconsciously been waiting for her to figure that out and leave and now she finally had. She was beautiful, smart, funny, and the kindest person he’d ever met. He'd been selfish to try to keep her as his own. Which was why he was now hell bent on destroying his own life, as penance for ruining hers. He’d hurt her, not physically, but his distance had worn her down, dulled her natural radiance, and for that, he could never apologise enough.

He was in pain, partly because she was gone, partly because he was hurting himself, drinking himself into oblivion. And now he was hurting Link too. Poisoning everything they had built together. From nothing, they had built an empire. They had started with a nonsensical idea and a crappy camera and it had grown into millions of people loving them, supporting them and paying them to be stupid. It was everything they had ever dreamed and so much more. And he was tearing it apart, back to the nothing it had come from.

But he didn’t and couldn't care. That was what hurt the most. He didn't know how to feel anymore. He was either numb or he was angry. All other emotions seem to have fled, leaving him a grumpy shell of a man.

He wished he could have fought harder to keep their relationship alive, but he knew that he couldn't be what Jessie needed him to be. Not anymore. He'd pushed her away and he didn't know how to undo it. His heart had always been torn and it had finally reached boiling point. He wanted to stop pretending that he didn't have what he really wanted. He was so tired of pretending.

His life and Link’s were so entwined that to hurt one was to hurt the other. Ones joy was joy to the other. They hadn’t always been that way, they’d had some rough patches. During college, they drifted apart a little, discovering for the first time since the age of 6 who they were without the other. But now? They were a team, a partnership, together forever, inseparable.

Their first kiss, college, jobs, marriage and kids - they'd all happened like a choreographed dance. One after the other, Link leading. It was always Link leading. And Rhett followed as Link showed him the steps. Because Rhett never wanted to be left behind.

Now, for the first time in their lives, something had happened to Rhett that he had no routine to follow. He was stumbling out of time with the music and he was dancing alone. And it made him mad. This wasn't the way they worked. He needed Link to guide him.

The thing he wanted… The thing he craved…

He needed Link.

He wanted Link.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a second AO3 account, as my main is not RPF oriented. This one however... All bets are off. Bring the sin. 
> 
> This will have a happy ending. I meant this story to be a short little angsty thing, but that is never how my stories end up. Whoops. 
> 
> Title from a Duke Special song by the same name. I highly recommend listening to him, if you haven't. That song in particular is beautiful. Plus, his Irish accent is relaxing and awesome. I was having trouble thinking of a title and was scrolling down my music player, looking for inspiration. That song was oddly perfect and serendipitous.
> 
> I've written 7 chapters so far, but it's not finished yet. So I'll be posting pretty regularly. I'm terrible at finishing things though, so prod me if it goes more than a week between updates, OK?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhett is hurting and takes it out on Link in a way that Link definitely wasn't expecting. Tensions are high and Rhett might have just ruined everything.

It was a Wednesday, four months after Jessie left, that the tentative house of cards they'd built fell down around them. Rhett stumbled in, later and drunker than usual, wearing yesterday's clothes, and Link commented somewhat snidely under his breath that he was glad they weren't filming that day.

Rhett reacted faster than Link would have thought, given his apparently impaired condition. He stalked over to Link, backing him up against his desk, surrounding Link in the waft of alcohol, sweat, smoke and a cologne Link didn't recognise.

"What did you say?" He practically growled in Link's face. Link flinched back, trying to avoid the overpowering stench that presumably emanated from Rhett's clothes. Rhett saw him flinch and it only inspired his ire to higher levels. If Link thought he would ever hurt him, he had another thing coming. He smirked and pushed in closer, using his height to try to intimidate Link. It didn't work, of course. Link knew him too well and had recovered his composure to softly admonish his friend. 

"I think you should go have a shower, maybe a nap and then we can talk, OK brother?" Link tried to wriggle out from between Rhett and his desk, needing the distance, as the smell had immediately prompted a headache behind his eyes.

"Maybe I don't want to talk," He punctuated this whispered confession by deliberately pushing his hips forward into Link's, making the desk dig painfully into the small of Link's back. Rhett wasn't hard, but the implication was clear. Link glanced back over his shoulder, bracing his hands on the desk.

Rhett took this as an opportunity to attack Link's neck, rubbing his unkempt beard against it and sucking a mark onto it, wanting to taste and enjoy but also hurt the other man like he was hurting. His hands had clasped Link's hips, hard enough that Link flinched again.

"No, Rhett, stop," Link said sternly, leaning back as far as his back would allow, transferring his hands from the table to the chest of the man in front of him, pushing him back with all his strength. Rhett didn't budge. He didn't even seem to notice that Link had said or done anything. Link's composure was starting to slip again, but he wouldn't let himself panic. He trusted Rhett... Right? 

"Maybe I don’t wanna stop. Maybe I wanna fuck..." Link cut him off with a slap across the face. He was shaking and in shock. He'd never been scared by Rhett before, but this wasn't the Rhett he knew and loved. This Rhett was a mess. This Rhett could have done anything and Link doubted he could have stopped him. He was beyond reason, whether due to drugs or alcohol or emotion, Link didn't know. But he needed to snap him out of it, before something happened that couldn't be undone.

"Rhett. Stop." Despite the adrenaline and fury coursing through Link, his voice was strong and unwavering. Rhett just laughed drily, but pulled back slightly.

"You should've seen the guy I took to a hotel room last night," Came the non-sequitur. Link's breath caught and his heart sped up to an unbelievable gallop at the idea of Rhett with another man.

"Guy?" Link's voice did crack now, making Rhett's smirk widen. He was getting under Link's skin and he loved it.

Link didn’t want to believe it, but he knew it was true. As much as he wished it was just Rhett messing with him, trying to hurt him, he saw the truth in his eyes. Rhett had slept with some random man. He knew that Rhett had never been with a man before and Link had always thought that when he was - if he was - it would be him.

He wanted it to be him.

"Oh yeah. A real twink. Slim, but muscular," Rhett interrupted his friends’ traitorous thoughts. He was running his hands over Link's body now, punctuating each point by groping him. He tangled a hand in Link's hair and yanked his head to the side, attacking his neck again, between growled words. "Dark hair, blue eyes... a geek, with big black glasses and gorgeous lips... that looked so good wrapped around my dick."

"Shut up." Link had stopped trying to push Rhett away. He relaxed into Rhett's arms and was letting him do what he wanted to him. He gave himself over to the fantasy and the sensation. Now the initial panic had worn off, he knew, without a doubt, that Rhett would never, could never hurt him. At least not physically.

"He loved it. Begged for me. There was no 'Rhett, no'. It was all 'yes, fuck me harder big boy'. Wanted me to fuck him real hard. And I did. It was so good, baby," He whispered each dirty word into Link's ear, causing goose bumps to break out all over the smaller man's body. As much as Link disliked cursing in general, he couldn’t deny that the filthy words were having an effect on him and Link couldn't think straight.

Rhett had stopped being so rough, sensing that Link wouldn't try to shove him away again, at least for the moment. Now he ran his hands over his friend as if he was trying to read his body like Braille, like he was reading his favourite poem and he wanted to memorize every line, every cadence, the beauty and rhythm.

"Why are you doing this?" Link almost begged. His body was betraying him and he clenched his eyes shut, trying and failing not to picture Rhett with a faceless, or not so faceless, dark haired man between his legs, but knowing if he opened his eyes, he'd be lost in Rhett.

"Why not? You know you want it, Neal." He rolled his hips forward again, causing a gasp from Link that just spurred him on to push harder. "I want it too. And it's not like I have anyone else to fuck, do I?"

The harsh, bitter tone pulled Link back from the edge and he pushed Rhett away. Rhett let himself be pushed.

"We agreed to never talk about this." Link's voice was carefully cold and he finally escaped to the other side of the room, breathing hard and willing himself to calm down.

"I must have missed that conversation. Was that before or after we made out at that party in freshman year on a dare? Before we jerked off together on that camping trip?" Rhett was angry again and the urge to punch something was growing. His arousal just added fuel to the fire. He needed release, one way or another.

Link blushed as he remembered each time they had come dangerously close to something more than friendship. There had been hundreds, maybe thousands of times through the years. He purposefully locked each moment away, never dwelling on what it actually meant, but treasuring them regardless. He thought Rhett had done the same.

He'd never consciously let himself acknowledge that Rhett felt it too. Because if he did, it would be torture, knowing they wanted each other, being literally within arm’s reach most of the time, but not being able to grab it, grab him. But if Link had been wrong and Rhett didn't feel the same, it would've crushed him. So he lived in his happy Schrödinger-esque world where his feelings were both reciprocated and rejected. It might have been messed up, but it had worked for all these decades and he saw no reason to ever change it. Until now.

"There was no conversation. Which is exactly why we aren't going to discuss this now, of all times." Link wasn't going to let Rhett bully him into finally admitting what they'd both subconsciously known for years, especially when Rhett was hurting and possibly drunk.

"So because you refused to ever talk about it means that you thought I agreed to just let this go?" Rhett scoffed, trying to push Link closer to anger. Anger made Link do stupid things and Rhett hoped that the stupid thing he'd do would be him.

"It's too late. We made our choices." Rhett was seething now. Link had made the choices. Everything they'd done was Link's choice, Rhett following along obediently, and he was sick of it.

"I didn't realise there was a time limit on talking about wanting to fuck your best friend." As a sharp contrast to only moments ago, the swearing jarred him and Link rose to meet Rhett's temper head on. Link was never one to back down from a challenge, even outnumbered and backed into a corner.

"Is that what this is? Just a quick fuck like all those people you've been picking up every night?" Link tried not to let the jealousy and hurt at being reduced to a hook-up show, but knew he'd failed when Rhett smiled his damn sexy smirk that he always wore when he won a game against him. It never failed to rile Link up.

"What else could it be? It's not like you would ever give up your picture perfect life. It's not like you'd ever put me first." Rhett’s words hit too close to home, for both of them, reminding them of what Link had and what Rhett had lost.

"I have been putting you first. I've always put you first. You think this has been easy for me? Seeing you hurting like this? You think this has been easy on Christy?"

At the mention of Christy, Rhett lost what was left of his mind, all thought disappearing in red mist. All that Jessie was to Link, Christy was to Rhett. He loved her, he really did, but right now, he didn't want to be reminded. She had what he wanted and he couldn't let guilt stop him now. He was too far gone.

Link saw all reason leave his friend as Rhett stormed towards him, hunched inwards in rage, but appearing ten feet tall and impossibly dangerous. Link pressed back against the wall, faintly thankful that there was nothing to dig into his back this time, as Rhett reached him. Rhett's hands balled into Link's shirt and he slammed him backwards against the wall.

There was a second where Link was sure a punch was coming. The impact of the wall forced all breath from his body and he closed his eyes, preparing for a second impact.

A second passed, tense and silent, the only sounds Link could hear was the blood pumping through his veins and the heavy breathing against his face.

Suddenly, Rhett kissed him hard, sloppy and so gloriously perfect.

If Link had had any breath left, it would have vanished from his lungs as heat sizzled through him.

Link's head was spinning from his head smacking off the wall and from the feeling of his best friend kissing him like he’d always dreamt he would. This was their first kiss where, at least for Link, there was no alcohol involved. Who knew how drunk Rhett was? But for Link, this was now an experience that he knew he would be able to recall with perfect clarity and would relive over and over in his darkest, most private moments. In fact, he couldn't taste any alcohol on Rhett's tongue and he wanted to let himself believe that maybe his friend wasn't angry or drunk or damaged and that he really wanted this. That was dangerous, wishful thinking, but it was too tempting not to indulge in the beautiful fantasy.

Link wanted to let himself enjoy the kiss, Lord knows he'd waited for it long enough. But Rhett was pushing too hard, biting too sharply, caging him in.

Link pulled himself away and spat in Rhett's face.

"Just because you fucked up your marriage doesn't mean you can fuck up mine."

Link knew then that Rhett wasn't drunk enough to soften the blow as the words hit him full force. His eyes went wide, almost childlike in their shock and sadness as he pushed away from Link without a word.

Link never swore. The fact that he had, and had thrown Rhett's failings in his face, was meant to wound him in the worst way he knew how. One of the downsides of knowing each other so well was knowing exactly how to cut each other deeply and without mercy with only a few words.

Link's heart sank at the sight of his friend, now turned away from him and shrunken in on himself, this time from hurt and shame.

"Rhett, I didn't mean it," He stammered out.

Rhett's face when he glanced back around showed Link exactly how much he believed that. Rhett knew that maybe he didn't believe it now that the adrenaline had worn off. But when he said it, he'd meant it 100% and it cut him to the core. He blinked away the moisture from his eyes as he turned away again.

"OK, I did. But I'm sorry." Link inched carefully over to put a hand on his shoulder, to try to soothe the hurt and apologise again. Maybe kiss him better, he thought hopefully, though he suspected that would be a terrible idea right now. More realistically he was expecting the punch he had anticipated earlier and he thought that maybe now more than ever, he deserved it.

"Don't touch me." Rhett's voice was rough and Link couldn't tell if he was crying. He pulled his hand back and sighed.

Rhett was trying so hard to keep it together. The burn in his eyes told him that he was dangerously close to breaking down. He swallowed it down, breathing carefully, hating himself.

They might have just broken their friendship beyond repair. They'd bulldozed a door that they had barely even dared knock on before.

After a few seconds of stifling silence, Link broke the stalemate and said softly, "Maybe you should head home. I can hold the fort. Just take the day, alright?"

Rhett didn't reply, just turned towards the door and walked out. The door clicked shut quietly behind him, sounding oddly final, yet underwhelming. Surely the end of their lives together should have ended with a bang, but it looked like it would end with a whimper after all.

Link let the tears fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the scene that started this story and it wouldn't leave my brain until I got it down on paper. So here it is. I couldn't wait a week to post it, because the first chapter really doesn't say much. This chapter is where it all starts to get interesting. Hopefully at least one person is still with me. Anyone?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part one of the aftermath of the fight. How will the men move forward from here?

After their fight, Rhett had gone back to his empty house. He sat and he thought. He'd stayed up all day and night, thinking about what his life had become and what he should do now. Should he call Jessie? Link had rejected him and she was the only other person who loved and understood him. But she wouldn't help him now and he was too proud to ask anyway, even if he could tell her the truth.

Maybe he should run away, never see Link or anyone he knew again, move back East and start over? He'd always liked New York. He might be able to lose himself there. He analysed every option, overthinking and processing.

Similarly, Link had gotten home, not staying too late at the office, unable to relax and work with everything that had happened swirling through his mind. He claimed a headache to retire to the spare room straight after dinner. It wasn't a lie, the stress and confusion making his head pound. Being slammed into the wall hadn't exactly helped either.

The next day dawned with both men sleepless and on edge. Neither was in a hurry to get to work, which was a rarity reserved solely for the days filled with filming episodes that involved digesting things which shouldn't be digested, at least not by humans.

Still without a course of action, and having not slept a wink, Rhett got up and ready early. He did his Pilates, showered and for the first time in months, he took time getting ready for the day. He focussed on the physical routines, trying desperately not to think about what might await him at work. The urge to run away was almost overwhelming.

Link arrived to the office first and paced. The time that Rhett would have usually arrived passed. He kept pacing. An hour came and went and he began to worry. His anxiety ratcheting up every minute that passed him by.

What if something had happened to Rhett? He'd been upset when he left the day before. Maybe he shouldn't have driven in that state. What if he'd crashed? But then, Link figured that Jessie would have let him know. She was, after all, still his next of kin.

Maybe Rhett needed another day? He never said when he'd be back in to work and the way they left things, Link wouldn't be surprised if he didn't ever want to come back.

Link considered his options. He couldn't call him, no matter how much he wanted to. They weren't in a place where Rhett would pick up, even if he was fine.

He had finally decided on getting Stevie to ring him, pride be damned, when the door opened and Rhett walked in.

Rhett had stood outside the building for half an hour before finally getting the courage to enter. He still didn't know what to do, what to say, but he knew that he couldn't avoid it forever, no matter how tempting the idea.

Rhett looked good, Link thought. He'd showered and trimmed his beard back to its normal length. His hair was still long, but he'd styled it like he used to. The curls stood up, soft and shiny. He looked just like the Rhett of 6 months ago. Link's heart sputtered in his chest and he wanted to launch himself across the room, whether to punch, kiss or just reassure himself that Rhett was OK, Link wasn't sure. Maybe all three.

Link had stopped pacing in the middle of the room and Rhett had paused in the doorway. The two men stared at each other, trying to read what the other was thinking and how they should act. Each wore their best poker face, struggling to gauge the other before giving themselves away, neither knowing how to feel.

Link gave a tentative, weak smile, as a rare concession. Link was rarely, if ever, the one to back down first.

Rhett closed the door behind himself with a sigh. Link struggled to keep the smile on his face, only partially succeeding.

Without speaking, they both sat on the couch, eyes trained forward. An eternity of a few seconds ticked by.

"Listen man..."

"Rhett, I..."

They both stopped. Their eyes met and Rhett started again.

"Listen, Link, I'm sorry. The way I've been acting lately, I don't know what I've been thinking," His voice was soft and sincere. Link melted hearing the remorse behind his words. Any anger he might still have had was gone in that instant.

"You're hurting, man. It's OK. I'm here for you. You know that." If this had been a week ago, Link would have patted his shoulder, or even given him a hug. Now it felt like too much, too intimate, but he still had to force himself not to. The instinct to comfort his best friend was ingrained in him, but he couldn't trust himself anymore. The wall had been broken down and he wanted to feel the thrill he had the day before, hormones he hadn't felt since college rushing through him. He needed to distance himself before it could become additive. He couldn’t let himself want it. At least not more than he usually did.

Rhett watched Link struggle with himself and decided then and there what he needed to do.

"I promise I'll get my act together. I promise I won't make this weird. Everything that happened yesterday, it'll never happen again." Rhett looked so guilty and Link didn't know how to feel. He wanted to scream or cry or something. But he choked it down and nodded.

"Me too, man. Everything I said, you know I didn't mean ‘em."

"Hey, nothing I didn't deserve. I messed up bad. But I'll never do it again. Let's just forget about it, yeah, brother?" Rhett looked so hopeful that Link just nodded and the relief Rhett felt was instant and obvious.

On the one hand, Link was relieved that Rhett didn't seem to want to talk about it. Not talking about it had become their M.O. for the past almost 45 years. No need to break with tradition now, right? Link tried to convince himself of that, but there was a nagging feeling down in his gut that told him it just wasn't going to be that simple. And he didn't really want it to be. After all, nothing worth it ever came easy.

*****

The second Rhett got home that evening, he called Jessie. He'd made up his mind that the last few months had been a gigantic mistake and he'd been an idiot to think that anything would change between himself and Link and he didn’t really want it to. He loved Jessie. Why would he ever want to give that up?

The phone rang for several nerve-racking seconds before Jessie's answered. If Rhett had any doubts about his course of action as soon as he heard her beautiful, sweet voice they evaporated.

"Hello? Rhett? Are you OK?" She sounded worried and it broke his heart all over again. How could he have done this to her?

"I'm not OK. Please, come home, baby. I need you." He words rushed out of him without thought and they were so true that it surprised him. He needed her. She was his safe place and the yin to his yang.

"Rhett..." She hesitated and he heard the surprise in her voice. He also heard the noise of the TV recede as she presumably went somewhere quieter and more private to have this conversation, as she was currently staying with her parents back in North Carolina.

"No. I know, I'm so sorry and you can torture me forever, but I need you. You're my everything, Jessie. I love you. Please." His voice was so soft and pleading and she had to know that he meant it, didn’t she?

"Why now? What's changed?" It wasn’t accusing, just softly curious.

"Nothing. I just realised that I need you. More than anything. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you." If she'd been in front of him, she would have seen the lie immediately. Everything had changed and there was someone else that he loved, desperately. Luckily for him, the quaking of his voice masked the usual audio tells.

"I don't think I can come back. The way you were acting, the way you've been acting, I can't go back to that. I deserve better," Her voice was clear and strong and it hurt. The truth hurt. He knew she deserved better, perhaps better than even she did. After everything he'd put her through before she left and everything he'd done after... He could never tell her and he could never make it up to her. But he needed to try. It was selfish, but he needed her back.

"I promise. I'll try harder. I'll make it up to you. Just give me one more chance to make you happy again. I used to make you happy, didn't I?" He didn’t want to beg. He was far too proud for that, but he was not above using every happy moment they’d ever shared to win her back.

"Of course you did. You made me the happiest woman on the planet.” He wanted to cry at the echo of happiness in her voice, even now, but she paused for too long before continuing. “But you weren't happy. Something happened. Something changed. What went wrong?"

"It was me. I've been stupid. But I love you. I just had a midlife crisis or something. I’m over it.” He wasn’t over it. He hadn’t gotten over it in over 40 years, but he could forget again. It was possible once, and he was sure he could do it again.

“How can I trust that you won’t push me away again?”

“I’m going to try. I’ll try to talk to you more and if you feel like I’m slipping again, you can kick my butt.” She gave a small giggle at that and his heart mended a little at the sound.

“You know I can’t kick your butt. It’s too high up.” It was an old joke between them and it felt like home.

“I’d kneel down and make it easy for you.” They both laughed at the ridiculous image. The laughter trailed off and she sighed.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too, Jessie. Please, give me another chance.”

“OK, Rhett. We still have a lot of talking to do, and you will need to tell me why you’ve been acting this way, but I’m willing to listen.” He once again realised just how amazingly generous and forgiving she was and a bolt of guilt struck him hard.

“Thank you.” For the first time since she’d left and everything he knew had fallen apart, he let himself cry.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on and our boys are trying to get back to normal. Unfortunately, it just isn't that easy.

The next few weeks eased them all back into routine. Rhett hadn't been out drinking even once. He'd redoubled his efforts into being responsible, trying his hardest to show Jessie, and Link, that he was OK and that he wouldn't fall back into old habits. It was hard, but he knew he had a lot to make up for. More than he ever possibly could make up for.

At work, he was happy and friendly with the crew, joking and rebuilding the foundations of their enterprise. On camera, he was jolly and talkative and the Beasts were thrilled to have the old Rhett back.

Privately, however, things weren't quite as easy. Link and Rhett had both tried to slip back into their old patterns, but it wasn't quite working. The 'incident' as Rhett decided to call it, if only in his own head, was ever present. Looming over them and crossing their minds at the most inopportune and awkward of moments.

It didn't help that Rhett had no one to talk to about what had happened. Talking to Link about Jessie and talking to Jessie about Link wasn’t an option. The guilt and confusion was eating at him and he felt the pressure building. Building to what, he didn’t know. He only knew that at some point, he was going to explode if he didn’t do something.

Both men had stuck to their word that they wouldn't talk about the whole 'incident', but it wasn't that easy. Every second of every day, Rhett wanted to talk about it, to relieve the pressure. He needed some type of resolution, to fix the awkwardness that surrounded them, relieve the longing he felt when he looked at his best friend. Sometimes he just spaced out, staring at Link and he knew in those moments that Link could tell what he was thinking. When that happened, Link would mysteriously need to be somewhere Rhett wasn't. It hurt, but if this was his punishment, he would take it. At least Link hadn’t left him completely. All wasn't terrible.

Jessie moved back into the house, albeit into the spare room, a month after Rhett's desperate call. She hadn't been totally convinced of his ability to change, but Christy had encouraged her, letting her know that he was doing his best. So eventually, she'd given him a second chance, yet maintaining a distance and wariness. All in all, Jessie was tentatively hopeful. And soon enough, her optimism was proved correct. Rhett hadn't been this sweet, attentive, sensitive, and committed since the beginning of their relationship.

He dedicated himself completely to Jessie, distracting himself from his guilt and rationalising his actions by being the best husband he could.

But Jessie wasn't stupid. Not by a long shot. She knew that something was wrong. She loved Rhett, but the way he was acting? It was too nice. Too sweet. Too much. She knew him much too well.

A week after she moved back in with Rhett, she was feeling smothered. Rhett hardly ever left her side, except to fetch her something or go to work. And he wasn't even spending as long at work as he would usually. She smelled something fishy. He couldn't be cheating or drinking, because he was with her when he wasn't at work. But she could read the guilt on him like he was wearing a flashing neon sign. Subtle, the man was not.

"Rhett?" She called to him from the living room.

"Yes, baby?" He poked his head around the door frame from the kitchen. He was busy cleaning. If she needed a clue that something wrong, that was a big one.

"Can you come over here for a minute, so we can talk?" She smiled at him reassuringly when the terrified look stole over his face.

"Sure, honey." He walked over and sat on the other end of the couch, tea towel still slung over his shoulder.

"One of the conditions of me moving back was that we need to talk, be honest and work through our issues." She began carefully, but unflinchingly. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation for either of them, but if things continued the way they were, she was fully prepared to walk away for good this time.

"Yes?" Rhett could feel the sweat start to prickle on his skin, but he stayed still, frozen so he wouldn't give away the rising terror.

"We haven't really talked since I got back. I think it's time we were honest with each other."

"OK." He practically gulped and fought to maintain his calm facade.

"I'd like to know what happened that made you pull away from me," His heart stopped for a long, alarming moment, as he fiddled with his wedding ring, not wanting to look at her as she found out the truth, "But first, I want to know why you won't even look at me right now and why you feel so guilty that you're barely sleeping. Maybe they’re the same thing, maybe they’re not, but I think something happened when I was gone. I need you to tell me." She reached for his hand, her tiny one usually engulfed in his giant palm suddenly all-encompassing and the biggest comfort he could imagine.

Then her wedding ring clinked against his and something in him snapped. He couldn’t afford to lose her.

He was panicking. He needed to tell her something. She wouldn't just let this go. He wanted to tell her everything. But he couldn't. What could he say? He'd ruined his relationships with both people he loved within mere months?

Rhett never wanted to admit when he was wrong. He was bull-headed and prideful. Admitting that he'd been rejected by both of the most important people in his life was impossible.

So he chose the easier way out, and told her the tip of the iceberg.

"I slept with someone else, while you were gone." One truth. It was a big one, one that ruined marriages, but considering his other secrets, it was the only one he could tell.

Despite what Link thought, what Rhett had let him think, it was only the one time. He never slept with anyone else, but the thought that Link thought he did gave him a sort of thrill. As if Link would be jealous. As if he would care.

"Oh." It was a flat, emotionless noise, so unlike Jessie's usual upbeat tone. It gave no clues as to how she was feeling. But Rhett couldn't make himself look at her.

"I didn't mean for it to happen. I was drunk. I regret it so much. I love you. It'll never happen again. It was a mistake." He rushed on.

"I understand. I don't really blame you,” She didn’t sound angry, just curious, “I just need to know, did it mean anything to you?" Her hand squeezed his, like she was giving him comfort. It should have been the other way around, but it wasn't.

She wasn’t really mad. She didn’t know how to feel. They _had_ been apart for months. Maybe he needed to get something out of his system. And he had begged her to come back. Maybe she could forgive him this, in time. But she needed to know if it was ever going to happen again.

"It didn't mean anything. It was just random. He was just there." He didn’t dare tell her that ‘there’ was a gay bar that he’d spent many nights in, getting drunk and dancing closely with men young enough to be his sons, not that Rhett looked his age. The admiration of the men there give him something he never knew he needed and would never have admitted to. It was his dirty little secret and he hoarded the memories as much as he hated himself for it.

He didn’t notice his slip of a pronoun until he saw her eyes widen and her hands began to shake within his.

"He?" She sounded choked. He'd never meant to tell her that. It was too close to the other truth that he swore never to tell. The thing she was going to demand to know before too long. He finally chanced a glance up at her beautiful face and was surprised by the lack of surprise he saw.

"Yeah." He nodded.

"Was it... Does Christy know?" Jessie pulled her hands away from his. She thought that Christy would have told her if she did, but she needed to ask the question anyway.

He was confused for a second before the implication hit him.

"It wasn't Link." His denial was so vehement and abrupt that he knew how it sounded.

Guilty. Longing. Resentful.

All he got in response was a thoughtful 'hmm'. The silence stretched on. Rhett knew anything he said now would give himself away, so he waited.

"Why?" She finally asked.

"Why what?" He looked confused.

"Why wasn't it Link?" She elaborated.

Rhett looked at her like she'd grown three heads. Of all the reactions he'd expected, this wasn't one of them.

"He doesn't want me. He would never..." Jessie had the sudden desire to weep, but not for herself. He seemed so thoroughly clueless that Link would crawl over broken glass for him. Link was just as bull-headed, but when it came to Rhett, he had a soft spot 6’7” tall. And Rhett was the same when it came to Link.

The idea that Link would reject him was not a thought that Jessie could even consider. Maybe she'd denied thinking about it, not wanting to acknowledge what she thought had always been there between them, but she knew without a doubt that whatever Rhett was feeling, it was mutual. They loved each other so thoroughly, so deeply, that she suddenly couldn’t imagine them not wanting to love each other in every way possible.

It hit her, this epiphany, and she almost wanted to laugh for not having seen it sooner. She’d been as blind as they had.

"And he's married." He added as an afterthought.

"So were you." She pointed out, still mulling over the ramifications of this, not new but newly acknowledged, aspect of their lives. He flinched at her somewhat detached and clinical tone.

"Were? Are you going to leave me again?" His voice had gone soft and pleading again and she obviously felt the need to reassure him.

"Never. I love you. Being apart was a nightmare.” She meant it. Now she knew, without a doubt, this was that had been making him withdraw from her. It’d probably been eating at him for decades. How had she missed it?

“You know you can tell me anything. I'm here for you," She said, snuggling into his side.

"I know. Thank you, baby. I can never thank you enough. I love you and I missed you so much.” The relief that swept through him was instant and profound. He kissed her hair tenderly, breathing in her scent. He had missed her with every fibre of his body and soul, despite how it might have seemed at the time.

"I missed you too. Will you tell me what happened with Link?" Her head was resting on his chest, and he struggled to stop his heart from beating itself against his ribcage revealingly.

"I told you, nothing happened." He tried to sound nonchalant. He failed miserably.

"No, you told me you didn't sleep with him. That definitely doesn't mean that nothing happened. You've barely talked about him for months.” Which should have been a red flag, but with how careful he had been around her, how many other things had been happening, she hadn’t stopped to consider that it had been a symptom for another issue entirely. “What happened, hun?"

"We had a fight. I don't want to talk about it, OK? It was just a stupid argument." Despite how understanding and forgiving as she had been throughout this entire conversation, he couldn’t tell her what had happened between him and Link. He was ashamed of how he had acted and there was a vast divide between sleeping with a stranger and being in love with your best friend of nearly four and a half decades.

"You guys don't fight. Not for this long anyway. You guys love each other." God, how utterly and terrifyingly true that was. She felt his answering shrug under her head.

"Besides, Christy told me that he's being all surly." She continued.

"When isn't he?" He was clearly trying to lighten the mood with his weak jibe, and she let him.

"You know what I mean, you giant goof." She playfully slapped his arm, breaking the tension and making him break out into one of his grins.

"Hey!" The conversation was over then, Jessie letting the seriousness recede, not forgotten, but on hold as the two of them jumped into a tickle match, before retiring upstairs.

It wasn’t until later, laying in his arms, that she realised he’d never denied wanting Link. He’d never said he didn’t love him. He obviously still hoped, despite what he’d said. Terror swept through her, chilling her to the bone, until she felt him holding her close and kissing her forehead, so tenderly like the gentle giant he was. His voice rumbled as he dozed off, the last words on his lips a confession of undying love for her. She looked at the serene smile on his face as he drifted off to sleep.

Things weren't perfect, in fact everything was a gigantic confusing mess, but she knew that Rhett would tell her everything soon enough. Whatever happened, they would work it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update. The holiday season was busy at work, then I travelled over the break and barely had a second to write. Hopefully I should be back to regular posts now. Hopefully.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Jessie and Rhett, it's time for a conversation between the other couple. Christy is determined to figure out why Link is being moody. Well, moodier than usual.

"Link?" Christy asked one afternoon, the afternoon after Jessie had confronted Rhett. It was yet another afternoon where Link would usually still be at work. But there he was, once again lounging on their couch, 'doing research', which Christy knew to mean that he was browsing the internet and sulking. He'd been sulking now for a little over month, which just so happened to coincide with the news that Rhett and Jess were going to try again.

Christy knew that it wasn't just a coincidence. She and Jessie both knew it. But she'd let him brood, hoping he'd get over whatever had happened sooner or later. He hadn't gotten better. If anything, he'd gotten worse, especially once Jessie was back and Rhett had done nothing but stay by her side. Both Jessie and Christy had called each other frequently when the men were at work, complaining of having their respective husbands always underfoot.

They had tentatively broached the subject of why both men seemed to be so out of sorts, discussing the fight they had obviously had and Rhett had confessed to, but they didn't want to speculate and butt into the men's relationship. Both women were usually more than happy to let them sort themselves out and stay out of their weird almost co-dependent relationship. However, if they didn't get their acts together soon, Christy feared she would have to force some sense into Link somehow.

Which was how she know found herself tentatively tip toeing into a conversation she really didn't want to have. But both she and Jessie had finally had enough.

"Yes, babe?" He answered, absentmindedly.

"How was work?"

"It was good," He shrugged. She sighed and plopped down next to him on the couch.

"How's Rhett doing?" She watched his face carefully, catching the pained look that he couldn't quite stifle.

"You've talked to Jessie, yeah? You know he’s doing fine. They both are." He hadn't looked up from his laptop and Christy had the sudden urge to slam it shut, maybe catching his fingers. She resisted the impulse.

"Yeah, she said so. She said he's been amazing. He apparently is waiting on her hand and foot." All she got back was a grunt of acknowledgement.

Looks like it was time for the direct approach. Link really did need to be hit over the head by the obvious sometimes.

"You wanna tell me what happened between you and Rhett?" Link's scrolling finger froze on the Macbook trackpad.

Gotcha.

"Nothing happened." Whatever was on his computer screen must have been dang interesting, because he glared at it like it had killed Jade and insulted his mother.

"Of course. Which is why you can't bear to be at work and haven't said a word about him for over a month."

"Not everything is always about Rhett." Christy almost wanted to laugh at that one. They'd uprooted their lives and moved to the other side of the country for Rhett. For Link, maybe not everything was solely about Rhett, but everything was at least tangentially linked to Rhett. Every decision Link had ever made had considered the ramifications on their relationship. Christy wondered for the first time if maybe Link didn’t see that. Maybe it was just a reflex that he couldn’t control.

"Alright. So you're just in a foul mood for no reason then?"

"I'm not in a foul mood," He said, grumpily, perfectly proving her point. She didn't point that out to him though.

"So, you had a fight. Wanna talk about it?" It was a question, but her tone wasn’t questioning in the least. Talk or face the consequences. It was a tone she'd perfected with the kids many years ago.

"Not really. It was just a fight. It's not the first and it won't be the last." Christy loved Link with all of her heart, she really did. But he could be as stubborn as a mule sometimes. She swore that he could throw a better tantrum than any of their kids could when they were younger.

"OK. So it wasn't a big deal." She shrugged.

"Mmhmm."

"Then why won't you talk about it?"

"Gosh darn it, Christy, I'm tryin' to work here. Just leave me alone, alright?" He snapped.

Christy's phone took the silence that followed as a cue to buzz obnoxiously on the coffee table.

"Don't you wanna get that? It could be Lily." Since Lily had been off to college, she had been ringing at least once a week to check in. Now that she’d graduated, the frequency had decreased, but it was still regular enough to reassure them that she was fine and happy in New York. Of course, as her parents, they really didn't think that she rang enough, but they knew what it was like to be young, so they let it go. Lincoln called once in a blue moon, but he’d always been the independent one, and a boy, so they accepted that more readily.

Christy checked the phone to see it was Jessie, who was probably having as much trouble with Rhett as Christy was with Link.

"It's just Jess." No reaction from Link, other than to shrug and turn his attention back to his computer.

She let it go to voicemail.

The phone immediately started vibrating again. Link looked at her pointedly. Christy sighed and grabbed the phone, answering it on her way up the stairs to their bedroom and out of earshot of her husband. She shut the door and locked it behind her.

"Hey Jessie, how'd it go?"

"Um... I guess it went OK?" The questioning tone told Christy that whatever Jessie was going to say, she'd better strap in.

"What did he say?"

"He cheated on me."

Christy had suspected, of course, with how erratic Rhett had acted throughout their separation, but to hear it was a different thing entirely. Especially from Jessie. Maybe it was a good sign that they were talking and being honest. Maybe she could get the same from Link.

"I suppose we weren't together, although I think we both always knew that we would work it out. I never meant to actually leave. But Chris, that's not the half of it,” She sounded almost hysterical, each word workinh her up further.

"What happened?" She didn't know what to expect Jessie to say next. She knew Rhett. It wasn't like him to cheat. But something worse than that? What could possibly be worse than that?

"It was with a man. He didn't say who..." She trailed off, leaving Christy's mind to shift into hyper drive. He wouldn't have... Would he? It would make his mood since Jessie returned make a lot more sense, but he wouldn't do that to her... Right? She trusted him with 99% of her heart, but that other 1% knew that Rhett meant just as much to him as she did. And sometimes I'm her darkest moments, she wondered if he didn't really mean more.

"Was it..?"

"It wasn’t. Well, he says it wasn’t. But they both have been acting so strange...” Christy’s mind cast itself back to the minutes before and applied this new lens to the conversation. As much as it would make sense, she knew that it didn’t quite feel right. Maybe it was denial, but she just didn’t believe it. Link wasn't a cheater.

“Yeah, they have.”

“I just don't know what to think anymore, Chris. I came back, because despite everything, I love him. I will always love him. What do I do?" Jessie was one of the strongest people Christy knew. To hear her like this was unsettling. She didn’t know what to tell her, but she knew that no matter what, they’d both be alright.

"Jessie, calm down. It'll be alright. I was in the middle of talking to the brick wall that is my husband. I'll go back down there and find out what happened. OK?" Christy was in her mother mode now. Having three children, and a husband who sometimes acted like one, had honed her conflict resolution skills to a fine point. They would figure this mess out. 

"Thanks, Chris. You've been a real life saver. I'm sorry that you're getting dragged into this."

"Whether you were calling me or not, I was always going to be dragged into this," Jessie, Rhett, Link, Christy and the kids lives were so entwined that when something upset the balance somewhere along the chain, the shock waves were felt the whole way along.

"That's true. Don't be too hard on Link... I think something happened between them, but Rhett wouldn't tell me anything. He seemed real upset though, worse than I've seen him before,” Jessie wanted to tell Christy everything, but she didn’t even understand half of it herself. She needed to wrap her own head around it before she could even think of explaining it to Christy.

"OK. Thanks for the heads up. I'll let you know what I find out." The call disconnected and she centred herself with a deep breath and a prayer.

Christy walked back into the living room where Link was now completely vertical on the couch and had his headphones in. She sat on his legs, forcing him to pull out his headphones and sit upright, making room for Christy to squish in between the arm of the couch and his legs.

"Jessie says that I should be nice to you."

"Does she? That's nice." He was going the classic avoidance move. Brush it off and pretend like she was crazy to keep going on about it. He wasn't going to be that lucky.

"But the thing is, I think you haven't been telling me everything and I'm trying not to get too mad at you."

"Chris, come on," He almost whined like a child. His tactic wouldn't work and he knew it. But he was also too stubborn to give it up yet. Christy loved him, but by gosh he could be exasperating.

"She told me some things Rhett told her about when they were apart."

"Like what?" If he was a cat, his ears would have pricked up and his fur would have stood on end. Fight or flight.

"That Rhett cheated on her." She said it like it didn't matter, like whatever happened next wasn't going to change the course of their entire lives.

"You already knew that." He shrugged it off, like it wasn't a huge betrayal of trust in a relationship. That had her slightly concerned, but she took a breath.

"I thought I did, I guess. What I didn't know was who it was with." Her pronouncement was met with silence. She tried not to read too much into that, but she saw him swallow nervously from across the couch.

"Do you know who it was?" She asked him, hoping that maybe he'd actually answer her honestly.

"A bunch of random women?" He shrugged, still pretending to scroll through some internet site or other.

"One person, Link. Only one," The shock was evident. Interesting. It wasn't often she knew something about Rhett that Link didn't. The question was why? Why had Rhett let him think he'd slept with a lot of people, when he hadn't?

"It was a man." She saw the split second of indecision. He was trying to play dumb, so should he act surprised, or just shrug it off? Which would indicate guilt less? Which one would she believe? But he didn't know it was too late. She knew that he knew already. She could see it. So that at least he knew. Curiouser and curiouser.

"Really?" He went for flat out, uninterested denial. An interesting choice.

"Yes. Jessie tells me it wasn't you." She tried to sound as disinterested as Link, but she wasn’t sure she pulled it off quite as well as he did. She was no actress, but she wasn't going to show her cards that easily either. 

"Why would you think it was?" It wasn’t as defensive as she’d expected. It was more tentative than that. More guilty, almost.

"Link, I'm not an idiot."

"Neither am I. But apparently you do think that I would cheat on you. With a man," He rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"Not with a man. With Rhett," She reached for his hand, but he pulled it back. She raised an eyebrow at his childishness.

"Who is a man,” He said, mockingly.

"He might be a man, but I don't really think that matters."

"Then you have some messed up priorities, here. I'm not gay!" He raised his voice, not quite yelling, but it was an emphatic denial, nonetheless. He took a calming breath and backpedalled. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just that I'm not. You know I'm not."

"I know you love me, yes. But..." Christy knew that Link was about two seconds from storming off and hiding away in the spare room for the rest of the night. She had to tread carefully.

"But what, Christy?" He sounded tired.

"I think you love Rhett too."

"He's my best friend and brother," He began on the old spiel. She’d heard it enough. She’d said it enough too, every time someone questioned their intense friendship. That should have been a clue, decades ago.

"I agree with the best friend bit, it's the brother bit that I'm having trouble with."

"Chris, I don't love him like that.” She could see that he was trying to be sincere. But there was something holding him back and it was enough to make her pull back from her line of questioning.

"Link, it's OK. Whether you do or don't, it's OK. You've been acting really strange since Jessie came back and I think something happened. I just want to know what's eating at you. I wanna help." This time when she offered her hand, he grasped it in both of his.

"We had a fight. He yelled at me and pushed me around, alright?"

"Over what?" Her question was met with silence, as she again saw him trying to find a way to escape the truth. "You've had hundreds of fights through the years. More than we have. But you always talk it out. You’ve never, not in over 40 years, let it come to a fist fight. What was so bad that it got physical?"

"He kissed me." She was surprised that hearing that really wasn't too surprising. She'd been sitting here, hoping that he hadn't cheated on her. But now that she heard him say it, it didn't seem like such a big deal. It was Rhett. They were so close they were almost one person.

"And..?" She prompted him.

“What do you mean ‘and’?” He seemed angry by her lack of reaction. She simply shrugged.

“You’ve kissed him before, right?” He looked flustered that she seemed to know. They’d never discussed it before. But she knew that somewhere in their many decades of friendship, which spanned the entirety of their stupid teenage and college years, they must have kissed. It would have been weirder if they hadn’t.

“Yeah, but…” He managed to stutter.

“But never like this?” He shook his head and she squeezed his hand.

“He… He wanted more, Chris. And I…” He trailed off, clearly conflicted. She couldn’t guess the end of the sentence. She didn’t want to. Had he reciprocated? Had he pushed him away?

“It’s OK, baby. It’ll be OK. I love you.” She didn’t know if it would be OK, but she needed to support him, for better or worse. Whatever had happened had changed their friendship forever and she knew that there was nothing she could do to help, except wait and listen to him. They needed to work it out themselves. She just didn’t know where this left her though.

“I love you too.” He gave her a tentative smile and kissed her cheek so softly. She sighed the tension away for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have all been so sweet and kind and motivated me to write a few new stories, which means I'm quickly running out of pre-written chapters. Whoops.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys continue trying to find their way back to normal, but maybe things have changed too much.

"Hey, man," Rhett greeted Link as he entered the office Friday morning. Link whipped around, doubly shocked by the fact that a) he hadn't heard Rhett come in and b) Rhett, who hadn't talked to him outside the set for a few weeks, had suddenly spoken to him, like he used to before everything had gone to hell.

"Hey. How’re you going?" Link decided to seize the opportunity to talk to him while he had the chance. He'd missed him. He'd missed him too much, especially considering that he'd seen him every day of the week, and sat shoulder to shoulder with him, pretending to laugh and be how they used to be. Being so close to him physically but so far away emotionally had hurt.

After his talk with Christy, he’d been doing a lot of thinking. She’d said a few things that hit a little too close to home.

He didn't want to accept that their kiss had sparked the embers that he thought were long dead. He had grown increasingly tempted day by day, so he'd spent most of the time running away, especially when he saw Rhett looking, almost staring at him like he was reliving the whole experience. It was too easy to let himself think about what he'd denied them when he'd said no and pushed him away. When Rhett looked at him like he wanted to do it all again, it made him want to undo his decision, jump at the chance to touch and kiss him and damn the consequences.

But he didn't let himself dwell on it.

"Pretty good. You?" Rhett had sat down and was peering over his laptop at Link. Link was happy to see, and proud that he could tell, just from Rhett's eyes, that he was smiling. He smiled back. It felt like old times.

"Alright."

"That's good." The silence descended over them again, but for the first time in a long time, it wasn't a looming, heavy silence.

They got on with their day, each feeling infinitely better for the small talk. They filmed a few segments, the ease of their banter coming back like it had never left. It had Link feeling like he could dance or float away, weightless. Their casual touching, which had returned with a vengeance, didn't hurt either. It was like they were teasing each other or testing the boundaries. Link wanted to pretend that it didn't matter. It was totally 100% casual. But he knew he was kidding himself.

Lunch time rolled around and Rhett stood from his desk, stretched his back and grabbed his jacket. Link watched him from the corner of his eye. He saw Rhett hesitate before finally speaking.

"I'm gonna head off for lunch." Rhett said, then paused.

"OK." Link replied.

"Did you wanna join me?" Rhett asked, his voice betraying both his hope and yet his expectation of rejection. Instead, Link jumped out of his seat without a second of hesitation and grabbed for his own jacket.

"What did you have in mind?" He grinned at Rhett and received a heartbreakingly radiant smile in return.

They found themselves walking towards a new Mexican restaurant that had opened a few blocks away from the studio. They entered and were shown to a corner table near the window. They sat across from each other and browsed the menu. Once they’d ordered, they sat awkwardly for a few seconds, before Link broke the silence.

"How are the boys?" It was easy to start the conversation about their kids. It was a nice, neutral topic, one that they both could speak endlessly about.

"They're good. Locke is gearing up for that diving championship I was telling you about." Rhett had spoken about the championship enthusiastically for months, and Link knew how proud he was of Locke for qualifying.

"Oh yeah. It's a big deal, huh?" Link asked, enjoying letting Rhett brag.

"Yeah. He reckons he can get to the Olympics if he keeps it up. Dunno how he can be so motivated." He shrugged, but Link knew that he was just trying to not appear too excited.

"He certainly doesn't get it from you,” Link couldn’t help but tease his friend. Rhett looked affronted.

"Excuse you," He said, somewhat haughtily. Then he broke his act by chuckling, "You're right. So how are yours?"

"Great. Lando has heard back from a few colleges already, but you know he's waiting for UCLA so he can be with Shep." Link rolled his eyes. Those two had been inseparable for years. He hadn’t heard the end of it when Shepard had taken the offer to go to school so close to home. He knew that Lando played a bigger part in that than being close to his parents had, not that they hadn’t also played a part, of course. Nothing beat a home cooked meal and clean laundry after all.

"They remind me of us when we were their age, don't they?" Rhett asked. Link couldn’t help but agree. They had done the same when they’d both chosen to stay together, both doing engineering, despite neither of them actually wanting to.

"Yeah. It's kinda nice." They both shared a second of nostalgia, thinking back to their college days.

"It's so strange to think our kids are all gonna be gone soon. We're getting old."

"Hey! Speak for yourself, old man." Link was trying to age gracefully, but he still held on vainly to the idea that he was still young enough to be cool, despite his kids repeated attempts to convince him otherwise. He suspected they were just jealous. Rhett knew better, but he wasn’t going to be the one to burst his bubble.

"I'm not the one with more salt than pepper these days." He laughed as Link ran his fingers through his own hair, using the chrome on the restaurant walls as a makeshift mirror. The metal of the wall making his grey hairs shine silver in the bright LA sun.

"Don't pretend like it doesn't make me look handsome and distinguished." Link pulled a duck face and struck a pose, making Rhett laugh harder. Link laughed with him and suddenly everything was alright again.

Until Rhett calmed and said, "You're right. It looks real good". He instantly froze at the sincerity and admiration that had crept into his voice uninvited. Link stopped laughing and the tension crept back, both remembering that they were walking a fine line here.

The food arrived and Link started the conversation again with the hypothetical, “Can you imagine if our kids had grown up hating each other?” Rhett gave a sharp, bellowing laugh, making Link giggle. It felt good to hear him laugh after the icy barely civil conversation of the past few weeks. “What would we have done?”

Rhett calmed enough to reply, “We would’ve adopted new ones until we got some that did.” Link laughed at the absurdity and thanked his lucky stars that it hadn’t come to that.

“We got lucky, brother,” Link laughed.

“That we did,” Rhett sighed, “Do you have any regrets?”

“Everyone has regrets,” Link replied flippantly. He soon sobered up when he saw the hurt look on Rhett’s face.

“That’s not what I meant,” His tone was heavy with the implication of what he had meant. _What if?_

“Rhett…” Link’s sigh was tired and a warning. He didn’t want to talk about it and Rhett knew it.

“I promise I’m not tryin’ to start anything. I’m just curious is all.” Rhett shrugged. Link took him at his word and thought it over. What would he change?

“If I had my time over… I don’t think I would change a thing.”

“Ok. Yeah. Sure,” Rhett was clearly disappointed in the answer, but trying to look like he wasn’t.

“Rhett, I don’t…”

“It's fine. Let's just forget about it, OK?” Rhett smiled a fake smile, the one he wore for the cameras when the people and pressure had started to get to him.

Link wasn't sure what he was supposed to say, but he had obviously messed it all up again, just as everything seemed to be getting back to normal.

_Good going, Neal._

He couldn’t just leave it there, with Rhett looking like an overgrown kicked puppy. He’d hurt him too much recently and they had finally been getting back to some semblance of what they had before. He needed to make this right. So he pushed forwards, hoping that unlike most times, he wouldn’t just dig himself into a deeper hole.

“I just mean, I don’t know what I would do differently. If I changed one thing, I don’t know what else it might change, ya know?”

“The butterfly effect.” Rhett mumbled around his burrito. Despite his still surly mood, Link could see that he was obviously impressed that Link had listened to at least one of his ramblings on the multiverse theory and all the effects that time travel could theoretically have on the universe.

“Exactly,” He grinned, “Like, if we’d gone to film school instead of engineering, would we have started Good Morning Chia Lincoln? Would we have done all those commercials?”

“I dunno.” Rhett was hesitantly following Link’s logic, as hard as that sometimes was. Luckily Rhett was well versed in Link-ish.

“Exactly. Everything we have now…” He gestured at the world in general, “We’re lucky. Maybe it ain’t perfect, maybe everything could have been a million times better. But what we have now, Christy, Jessie, the kids, the show, everything we’ve achieved together? I couldn’t give that up.” They still had each other. Maybe not the way that Rhett evidently wanted, but they were still together.

“I guess you’re right.” Rhett acquiesced, giving Link a tentative smile.

“Can you imagine telling our 12 year old selves everything we’ve done? They’d lose their minds.” Link tried to lighten the mood, focussing on the amazing, mind-blowing experiences they’d had.

“They wouldn’t listen to us even if we could go back and tell them. They’d think we were just crazy, graying old men.”

“Don’t start that again,” Link groused. Rhett laughed and his whole face lit up.

“Of course I have regrets, but I don’t regret anything that led us here, even the crappy stuff.” Link confided, leaning in closer.

“Me neither.” Rhett grinned at him, understanding everything he meant to say, but couldn’t.

Link opened his mouth to say something, obviously seriously.

“How is everything going here, guys?” The waitress interrupted with a sincere smile and cheerful tone. She was the kind of waitress who actually seemed to like her job. The men gave each other a grin.

“Everything’s good, thanks,” The waitress walked away again.

*****

The men finished their meals, occasionally laughing at nothing together or sharing a stupid joke. Everything seemed normal again, until the end of the meal.

“Thanks for having lunch with me,” Rhett said, quietly. He did appreciate how Link had stuck by him, given him space to think, to breathe, to get over everything that happened.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Link reached over to Rhett’s hand, which was resting beside his now empty plate and squeezed it, leaving his hand on top of Rhett’s and giving him an adoring smile, the one all the girls knew as ‘heart eyes’.

Rhett didn’t know how to react, so he froze. Luckily, the waitress chose that moment to come and pick up their plates. Link pulled his hand back and gave her mumbled thanks and assurances that the food was good. She smiled and walked away to grab the bill.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Rhett wanted to scream at Link. What did he think he was doing? Why did he do that? Was he trying to mess with Rhett’s head? That didn’t seem like something that Link would do, to tease him like that. Sure they teased each other, and pranks were part of their shared vocabulary, but there was nothing to be gained by being affectionate, especially now. He knew how awkward unwanted affection had made their relationship. They had hardly spoken for weeks and now he wanted to hold hands like it was no big deal? When had they ever held hands before, outside of challenges on the show? This wasn’t a prank, or a tease, or if it was, it was in bad taste and Link had to know that.

Link watched Rhett struggling to contain what he was thinking and feeling. And Link was struggling just as much. A door had been opened and they were standing outside, poised to enter. The longer they stood there, the more Link wanted to walk in and recapture the feelings he knew were waiting for him on the other side of the threshold.

Because Link had done nothing but think about their kiss since it had happened. Maybe it hadn’t been perfect in the moment, but looking back, it had exceeded even his wildest fantasies. It was a far cry from all their other kisses, which had been for a laugh, drunken ways to win bets or freak out their friends. Every hug was accompanied by hearty slaps on the back. Every 'I love you' was followed with 'like a brother'. They constantly assured themselves that platonic feelings were all they had for each other.

But that day had done something inside of Link, flicked some switch he didn't know existed and he couldn't turn it off again. And the harder Rhett had tried to pretend it never happened, the more Link craved breaking down the barriers and taking everything.

The kiss they had shared was raw and truly honest for the first time and Link’s heart yearned to feel it again.

The waitress returned with a smile and the bill. Out of nowhere and quite rudely Link thought, she said "I hope you don't mind me saying, you guys are such a cute couple."

It was by no means the first time they had been mistaken for a couple. It certainly wouldn't be the last. Maybe that should have been a clue, all those years ago, when everyone in their dorm had thought they were together for the first semester of their first year of university, until Link had started dating one of the cheerleaders.

They'd certainly gotten more than their fair share of teasing and bullying for being gay, from their earliest years. They'd had to harden themselves against it, never show weakness and deny it at every turn. But it never got easier. Especially as they grew up and realised that maybe what they felt for each other wasn't so brotherly after all.

They had to hide that part of themselves, from everyone else and each other. That was the hardest part. They could never tell the person who controlled a huge chunk of their heart that they had it in their hands, to protect or break. It made them vulnerable and feel so empty and alone, not knowing it had always been reciprocated. They had shared everything until that point. One of their strongest pledges was honesty always and they'd stuck by that pledge. But the one thing they should have been able to share, the one thing that would have made them complete, they had to hide away from their other half in shame.

They’d wasted their lives in shame and longing.

Rhett, still reeling from Link holding his hand, stuttered out a "We're not ..."

But Link beat him to the punch, saying "Thank you," giving her a broad fake smile and a wink. She giggled as she walking off, clearly wanting to 'awww' at them. She looked like she wanted to pinch their cheeks. Link resisted the urge to roll his eyes and inwardly decided that they would only be tipping the minimum without being rude.

Maybe Link had finally had enough of the shame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have two more chapters ready to go, meaning I only have two more to write, if I stick to my plan of ten chapters. We'll see how that goes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of their attempt at normalcy.

Rhett wanted to glare at Link. He wanted to yell and burn a hole through him with the force of his glower alone, but his heart wasn't in it. It seemed as if he had been transported to an alternate dimension, where he and Link were allowed to be openly intimate. He didn’t know how to react. He wanted it so badly, but he had thought, justifiably, that Link didn’t. Link had pushed him away, had agreed that he should never have kissed him, had avoided him ever since. And now he wanted to be affectionate?

Link placed his company credit card on the table, writing the tip on the receipt. He could feel Rhett’s stare on the top of his head as he did.

Link turned back to Rhett sheepishly.

"Why?" Was all that Rhett could manage.

"I dunno," He shrugged, "Kinda just felt like it."

"And that makes it OK?" Disbelief was practically dripping from his every word.

"I don't know, Rhett. You thought it was OK to just kiss me and then pretend like it was no big deal. So forgive me for being a little confused on where the line is, OK?" He was getting defensive and sassy and Rhett was confused as to how it was Link who was suddenly the victim here. Things had turned 180 so fast he was worried he'd end up with whiplash.

"The line is where it's always been. Nothing's changed." Rhett was glancing around the restaurant, making sure there weren’t any people close enough to them to hear their conversation. No one seemed to be paying them any attention, but they couldn’t be too careful.

"How can you say that? Everything's changed." Link was likewise trying to keep his voice down, but his annoyance was evident.

“Nothing has changed,” He reiterated sharply through clenched teeth, “We agreed to never talk about this. We agreed to forget it ever happened.”

“Yeah, like that worked so well in the past,” Link rolled his eyes, scoffing “Isn’t that what got us into this mess?”

“What do you want from me?” Rhett was tired and beyond exasperated. He’d had to fight his own feelings for so long, it didn’t seem fair that he now had to fight Link’s too. He simply wasn’t strong enough to stop whatever was happening here. He'd barely put himself back together as it was. Link acting weird - weirder than usual anyway - wasn't going to help. He was going to be crushed under the weight of this.

"You can't just tell me that you want me and expect everything to go back to normal. That's not how this works," Link said. Rhett wanted to argue that it would have been exactly how it would have worked, if Link had wanted it that way. Because they’d always done things Link’s way. Whatever Link wanted, Link got. Sometimes Rhett wondered if Link even realised that or if he was just too used to being pandered to.

But Rhett being fed up with the status quo and finally taking charge was what had led them here, so he didn’t say any of that. Instead he played it off, hiding behind the denial yet again.

"I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing." Rhett learned early on in their lives that deflection and lying wouldn’t work on Link, because they knew each other too well. At the moment, he didn’t seem to have too much of a choice. But he knew, even as he said it, that Link would see right through him.

"Rhett, I've seen you drunk before. A lot. Especially recently. You weren't that drunk." Link called him on the lie and Rhett couldn’t dispute it.

“What do you want me to say?” Rhett sighed, exhausted from all the emotions rushing through him. He needed Link to stop, but he was like a dog with a bone when he wanted something.

“I want you to be honest with me.” Link looked so heart achingly sincere that it damn near broke Rhett’s heart.

“You want me to tell you that I want you? Or do you want me to tell you that I’m in love with you? Fine. I love you.” Link waited for the ‘like a brother’ or ‘you’re my best friend’ that was always tacked onto the end of that statement whenever they said it to each other. But it never came.

Rhett watched as Link’s face changed. Once he realised that Rhett wasn’t going to follow his declaration with the usual cop out, he looked up and into Rhett’s eyes, surprised. Under Link’s surprised scrutiny, he could feel himself desperately wanting to take it back, take them back to their comfort zone, but he didn’t turn away. He couldn’t. He needed to see how Link would react.

“I…” Link started, only to jump and nearly have a heart attack when the waitress came back and grabbed the check.

The men sat in awkward silence as the waitress left and returned with Link’s card and a last glimmering smile, which did nothing to calm their nerves.

They exited the restaurant in similar speechlessness. Rhett wanted to take back his confession more with every passing second, every step towards the safety of the studio. But he also knew that Link wouldn’t take kindly to him backtracking. It was always best to just let Link think thinhs through in his own time. But it was killing him. He’d done it again. He’d pushed too far, despite knowing that it would push Link even further away. He hadn’t been comfortable around him when he’d thought that Rhett’d been drunk and come on to him. This time, he’d been sober and instead of just admitting that he wanted Link, he’d confessed that he was in love with him.

Link gave him an inch and he’d taken a mile.

Link wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. He had dug himself into a hole that he couldn’t climb out of, yet again. It seemed to be one of his greatest skills.

One thing he knew though was that Rhett had put himself out there, facing rejection, for the second time, and he had yet to reciprocate in any meaningful way. He knew that Rhett was freaking out, not just because he could see it on him, but also because he knew what Rhett was like. He was beating himself up, probably because Link had yet to tell him that he wanted him too. Link had the magic words to say to stop Rhett worrying. He just didn’t know how to say them. Or even if he should. Things had changed between them, and they could probably never go back to what they had, but was he willing to take that leap and solidify what was happening between them?

*****

They returned to the office and worked in silence for the rest of the day, occasionally breaking the silence to discuss an episode idea or bounce ideas around for the scripts, but they weren’t comfortable like they had been that morning.

It wasn’t until the end of the day that Rhett got up to go home, early as usual, when Link grabbed his arm as he walked by his desk, halting Rhett on his way to the door with a “Stop.” A little too forceful. “Please?” He added.

Rhett turned to look down into the wide, pleading baby blue eyes of his best friend. He wanted to ask what was going on, when Link let his arm go and stood. Rhett shuffled back to make room for Link to stand before him.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. Link was biting his lip and looking nervous. It was the sort of look that Rhett had become conditioned to fearing. It meant that Link was going to do something stupid.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then what…?” His question was cut off when Link’s lips met his, hard. A little too hard, but Rhett wasn’t exactly complaining.

They parted, panting and flushed barely a second later.

"Why did you do that?" Rhett gasped out.

"Dunno. Just felt like it." Link shrugged with a tiny half grin.

"Link." He was clearly trying to sound threatening, but the hope and uncertainty in his voice ruined the effect. Instead of explaining himself, Link chose to stare at Rhett, smug smile falling into place and eyebrows raised, demonstrating how dumb he thought Rhett was being at this particular moment, waiting for him to catch up.

Link could tell the second that Rhett worked out that Link wasn't just doing it to mess with or hurt him. His entire face lifted into a beautiful smile, one which was returned wholeheartedly.

"Have a good weekend, Rhett," Link said, grabbing his laptop off the desk and his jacket off the couch, kissing Rhett one more time before leaving the office. Rhett watched him go in bemusement.

Link hadn’t said the words, but maybe he didn’t have to. Not yet.

*****

"Jessie?" Rhett called as soon as he got in the door.

"Yes, hun?" Jessie poked her head out from the lounge with a smile. Rhett took a deep breath and readied himself.

"We need to talk."

“Alright.” The smile faded from her face, but her eyes still shone up at him with such love and trust. His stomach clenched. 

He took her hand as he led her to the couch and hesitantly started the speech he’d practiced in his head all the way home.

*****

"Link, is that you?" Christy called, as the door shut behind him.

"Who else would it be?" He called back.

"How was your day?" She said, walking into the entryway to give him a warm hug and kiss.

"Alright." He said, turning to hang up his jacket and compose himself.

"Did you talk to Rhett?" She sounded concerned and it hurt him. He turned back, but wouldn’t meet her eyes.

"Yeah. I did actually."

"And?" She was dying to know what had happened. She could see that something big had changed. Link could barely stand still or meet her eyes.

"And nothing." He shrugged.

"Link, come and talk to me." She grabbed his hand, pulling him into the living room. He wouldn’t get away that easy.

*****

"You love him, don't you?" A quiet, comforting, loving voice.

"Yeah, I do," A sob, a breaking heart.

*****

Jessie and Christy both knew everything, for better or worse, and there was no taking it back. Neither couple got much sleep that night, but neither did they talk. After the big revelations, the couples fell silent. Each lost in their own thoughts and jumble of feelings. The question on all of their minds was – what now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter. I'm currently writing the final two chapters, with one more chapter (8) all ready to go. But I don't wanna just post whatever, I wanna take my time and get it how I want it. So after next week it might be delayed a little, but hopefully not.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessie and Christy do their best to deal with everything that has changed.
> 
> All four have to figure out what this all means. What will they decide?

“You know that Shep is coming home for the weekend?” Jessie asked as she wandered into the living room late Saturday afternoon.

Rhett didn’t glance up from his phone, which he’d been fiddling with, but paying no attention to. His thoughts were on Link and Jessie and all the feelings he didn’t know what to do with. He just nodded at her declaration and absently said, “Yeah.”

“So I thought we could have a barbeque tonight?”

“Sounds good.” He agreed, still not really listening.

“I’m glad you think so. I’ve invited Link, Christy and Lando too.” That got his attention with his startled glance being turned on her sharply.

“Jess,” He warned, voice low and dangerous. It was his scariest voice, but it had long since lost any hint of danger for her.

“Rhett,” She copied his tone as best she could. Of course she never could get her voice that low, but she gave it her best shot, mockery clear as she rolled her eyes.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I think it’s a great idea. And I’m always right, so it’s a great idea,” She was smiling at him so innocently, but he could see the calculating sharpness in her eyes, “Besides, they're on their way right now. Fire up the grill, would ya?” She walked out of the room again, leaving Rhett behind in breathless silence. What was she trying to do?

*****

The two couples were sitting in the living room, chatting and sharing a bottle of wine. They sat on the long couch, men on either side, sandwiching their wives together in the middle.

Everything seemed oddly normal, given the tumult of their lives recently. The men especially had thought that after everything that they had discovered about each other and themselves, that they would be awkward around each other and their wives. But they had been in this situation a million times before, so many shared dinner parties and birthday celebrations throughout the years, that it took no effort to fall back into the safety of the familiar, pushing the uncomfortable feelings to the back of their minds.

Having their two youngest children around as a buffer also helped to keep the inevitable conversation at bay, a fact both men were more than a little glad about.

"Hey mom, we were gonna head out to the movies and use those free tickets you gave us." Lando announced as he and Shepard meandered in from upstairs, where they had been playing video games and catching up.

"That's fine, hun. Just be back by 12, OK?" Christy responded, giving them a smile.

"Free tickets?" Link asked, eying his wife sceptically. He had the nagging feeling he was being set up.

"I won them in a raffle at church," Christy said, waving a dismissive hand and taking another sip of wine. Link knew that it was a lie, that no such raffle existed, but he didn't say so, preferring not to cause a fuss in front of the kids and Rhett and Jessie.

"OK, boys. You have fun." Jessie said, blowing them a kiss. The boys rolled their eyes at the antics of their parents, but they waved as they left.

The couples went back to talking, but without the boys around, a little tension had begun to sneak in around the edges and Rhett sensed that the axe could fall at any second.

Five minutes hadn’t even passed before Jessie casually turned to Christy.

“Did you wanna see that project I’ve been working on?” Jessie asked with a pointed look. Rhett’s heart seized in his chest.

“’Course I do,” Christy nodded. Link shot her a worried look, warning her silently not to leave him, but she pointedly ignored him. Link wasn’t entirely sure what he was so afraid of, just that he knew being left alone with Rhett right now wouldn’t end well.

“Great. It’s on my laptop upstairs.” Jessie stood. Rhett’s hand grabbed for hers as she rose, but she simply patted it in both of hers for a moment with a serene smile before pulling away. Christy followed, giving Link a look he couldn’t decipher.

*****

Jessie led the way up the stairs, towards the master bedroom. Neither of them spoke until they entered the room and shut the door, knowing that the conversation they were about to have wasn’t going to be easy.

Jessie’s laptop sat plugged in on her bedside table, but she didn’t make a move to touch it, instead, she sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped tightly in her lap, eyes trained on the twisting of her wedding ring around her finger. Christy took a seat beside her, not quite touching, but close enough that they could lean on each other if they needed to, literally and figuratively.

They’d spoken on the phone early that morning, hiding from their still sleeping husbands and planning this dinner. They’d cried as they shared the conversations they’d had and the revelations they’d come to. At the same time, they were relieved.

Both men had confessed to everything. No more secrets were had between them.

Rhett had told Jessie of the desire that had suddenly overwhelmed him and made him push her away. He’d told her about sleeping with a man for the first time, wishing it was Link and feeling almost guilty that it wasn’t, like he’d cheated on him. The fight and kiss that had seemingly spelled the beginning of the end for the men’s friendship. The reconciliation lunch they’d shared and the kisses they’d parted with, the surprise ones Link gave him, leaving him dazed and uncertain, yet hopeful. His confusion on what it all meant for everyone he loved. Jessie had listened, apparently without judgement, but holding back tears.

Link told Christy of the desire he’d felt since he was a child, that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake. The pain of watching his friend hurting, having lost Jessie, not knowing how to help. The slap in the face when Rhett had turned on him, attacked him and kissed him like he’d never been kissed before. The spiral of confusion, guilt and desire that he hadn’t been able to stop. The fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about it and he’d kissed him back and left them both more conflicted than before. Christy encouraged him to let it all out, prodding him when he faltered, but wanting it to end.

Throughout the confessions and tears, they had told their wives that no matter what, they loved them. But what did that mean for them all?

The women sat in silence for a moment.

“Do you think it was a bad idea to leave them down there alone?” Jessie asked, glancing anxiously at the closed door.

“I don’t know. Probably?” Christy sighed, with an exhausted shrug.

“I guess it’s not like they’re never gonna be alone together again,” Jessie acquiesced.

The idea that they could be under constant surveillance was laughable. It was their job to be with each other all the time. They had been alone together for countless hours, more days and nights than they could count over their decades together, and hopefully would be together for many more. Neither woman really knew whether to be OK with that now, now that the men had crossed the line that had always kept everything from falling apart.

It had flipped their world upside down.

“I think they need time to come to terms with this and make their decisions as much as we do.” Despite the words, the women had made their decisions already. They had made their decisions the second the men had told them, before they’d even talked to each other. Not that there was much of a decision to be made. They knew what they needed to do, but it was going to be impossibly hard.

“What if…” Jessie trailed off. Christy put her shaking hand in Jessie’s equally unsteady one. They drew strength from the contact, knowing that someone else was, quite literally, going through exactly the same thing. It was comforting.

“We’ll deal with it, alright?” Christy looked at Jessie and saw her looking so young and so unlike herself. Jessie was only a few years younger than the rest of them, and usually she was a pocket rocket of strong, independent, incredibly intelligent woman, but right now she looked so vulnerable and afraid. Christy wanted to hold her like she used to hold her children when they were hurting. But no amount of lullaby’s or band aids could fix this pain.

“How can you be so sure?” Jessie looked up at her with hope in her shining eyes.

“I can’t, Jess. But we need to be strong here. They have a choice to make and no matter what they choose, we need to be able to deal with it.” Jessie took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Christy was right. No matter what happened, they had to plough on. Maybe they could never trust their husbands again. Maybe they would have to walk away. Maybe they had to compromise their happiness and the happiness of those they loved. It was a gamble. Was there any way that everyone would emerge unscathed here? Weren’t they already damaged enough?

Jessie had walked away once and she was definitely strong enough to do it again. She just hoped with all of her heart that it wouldn’t come to that, for everyone’s sakes.

“Alright. You ready?” They nodded silently and headed downstairs.

*****

The men watched as if in slow motion as the ladies left the room.

A hush fell over them. All Rhett could hear was the pulsing of his own blood through his ears, suddenly deafening.

The men turned to each other, from opposite ends of the couch. Link, at the openly vulnerable look on Rhett’s face, knew he had to reassure him, so he took the initiative to scooch towards the middle, giving him a tentative smile as he did, knowing that too much too fast would make Rhett bolt like a skittish stallion.

They hadn’t had a chance to talk since the afternoon before, where things had been left unresolved. Link had kissed Rhett, twice, but neither of them knew yet what it actually meant, or if it meant anything at all. Now, sitting in his home, Rhett felt overwhelmed. It felt too real all of a sudden.

Rhett cast a terrified glance at the doorway, but no sign of the women could be seen or heard. Link took this as permission to get closer, taking Rhett’s hand in his.

“Hey. You OK?” Link whispered. His eyes searched Rhett’s face, looking for a reaction to tell him how he should proceed.

“No. They could be back any second.” He tried to pull his hand away, but Link had his fingers securely entwined with his in a second like they’d done it before, like it was a normal part of their lives. Rhett could have escaped the grasp if he’d wanted, but he found that he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. Link knew this, so didn’t let go.

“They’ve definitely caught us doing weirder stuff than this,” Link laughed. Rhett certainly couldn’t argue with that. But given what had happened, what he’d told Jessie, the stakes were higher now and he couldn’t help the pulse of anxiety and excitement it caused to run down his spine.

Link could practically read his mind, and he smirked at the shiver he saw. Something about the innocent act of holding hands, contrasted with the dire costs of getting caught, had him wanting to kiss Rhett and just deal with whatever came next.

But he ignored the urge as he hummed and relaxed back into the couch, enjoying being able to be openly affectionate and let Rhett know that he hadn’t imagined everything that’d happened between them. He wasn’t going to push it, but he needed to Rhett know that he didn’t regret what he’d done, no matter what the future might hold for them. Even if they needed to step back and outwardly pretend nothing had changed. They would always know the truth, what they truly meant to each other and maybe that was enough. They could pretend that was enough.

As endless seconds ticked by without any sign of the women, Rhett let Link’s joy and carelessness seep into his bones and he let himself relax until they were leaning against each other, shoulder to thigh. Link sighed happily and Rhett couldn’t resist letting himself turn the few inches it would take to look at his best friend. All of a sudden, looking at Link like he’d never seen him before, sat on his couch, like he had a million times over the years, he couldn’t believe the path his life had taken.

He was sat there, gazing at the beautiful smile of the man he loved, like he didn’t have a care in the world, when he knew his wife could walk in at any second. A madness seized him and he allowed himself to lean in.

Their lips met in a kiss so unlike all the ones they’d shared so far. Their kisses so far, since they’d started whatever this was, were violent. All teeth and tongues. 

This kiss was so different. It was tender, soft at first, before their lips melted together and moved perfectly in tandem. It was a first kiss. A classic, hesitant first kiss. Neither of them really thought that at their advanced ages that they would ever share another kiss quite like this one. But as they parted, they snickered, feeling as giddy as the teenagers they had been when they’d shared their actual first kisses with Amber.

The moment was perfect. It was them. They had always complemented each other and it seemed like this was no exception. The fact that they had burst into uncontrollable laughter after they pulled away ensured there was no awkwardness. It was like it was meant to be.

“What are we doing here, Link?” Rhett asked, resting his forehead against Link’s as they shared the last gasping giggles in the breath between them.

“I don’t know, man. I just know I don’t wanna stop.”

“But what about…” Link cut him off with another gentle kiss.

A clearing of a throat from the doorway had the men scrambling apart, swearing and blushing. They’d been caught red handed and they couldn’t possibly explain it away.

They looked up to see the twin looks of heartbreak on the faces of the women they loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make me very happy and I like to hear what you guys think, whether it be good, bad, ideas, or things I need to fix. Whatever it is, feel free to let me know.
> 
> The next chapter is 90% done and it is a beast of a thing. So many feelings. After that, one more chapter, which is currently a brief outline and idea in my head. I'll be starting on it ASAP, so I think this mammoth will be finished sooner than later. I can't believe how many people have actually read this. 
> 
> Have I said thank you? Because holy moly guys, thank you. I love y'all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've been caught and set in motion a drastic change in their lives. How will they all deal with this? Can they deal with this? Or will they be forced to make a choice that could break all their hearts?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has emotions from every side and people dealing with infidelity and non-monogamy in their own ways. It's not too full on, I don't think, but the emotions are pretty heavy.

There was an almost supernaturally silent few seconds before the women shared a look. Rhett and Link had jumped apart and were now sat at either end of the couch again, pressed up against the arms as far as they could go as if that would make this situation better, like they could pretend the women hadn't seen what they'd seen.

Christy moved to sit in the armchair that was placed beside the couch. Jessie perched herself on the coffee table.

The men watched the woman, glancing between them, waiting anxiously for the yelling and crying and counting every second like it might be their last.

The women took the hands of their respective husbands. Rhett looked close to tears and Link looked like a guilty puppy.

Jessie was the first to speak, squeezing Rhett’s hand and turning to look at all three other occupants of the room.

“You don’t have to pretend. We know.”

Link wasn’t making eye contact now, eyes unfocussed in the direction of his shoes, and Rhett was still staring, terrified, at her face, as if she was going to explode any second. Jessie used to think it was funny to see such a seemingly big, hairy, gruff man being scared of a tiny woman, but she’d long ago learned that no one except her and Link had the power to really, truly scare him. He allowed himself to be the big, surprisingly vulnerable teddy bear he really was with them, trusting them not to hurt him. It was another sign she’d missed for far too long.

“We know what’s happened between y’all and… We need to talk, all of us,” Christy added. Link nodded, resigned. Christy’s entire being called to her to reassure him, but she couldn’t. He should feel guilty. She took the tiniest amount of pleasure in his pain, but she hated herself for it just as much. She was torn and despite all the thinking she’d done during her sleepless night last night, she still didn’t quite know how to feel.

“I don't really know how to start,” Jessie confessed, turning to Christy, who nodded and took the lead.

“First off, you know we love you. I mean, we both love you both,” She looked at Rhett then, making uncomfortably long and intense eye contact. Her words spoke of love, but her tone did not. He almost flinched as if he’d been slapped. He’d betrayed her and he wouldn’t blame her if she hated him. He went to speak, but she continued, “We should've known the deal when we met you.”

“Maybe we were naïve,” Jessie added, “Maybe if we'd pulled you apart 25 years ago...”

None of them really knew what their lives would be like if they’d taken a different path all those years ago, but of course the thought had crossed their minds occasionally throughout the years. Every time it did, they thanked their lucky stars that they’d ended up where they were. In spite of the risks, and the odds being stacked against them, they’d lived their dreams.

This was the first time any of them had ever questioned it out loud and it hurt to hear it, but it no one was sugar coating anything anymore.

“But we didn't. And you are inseparable now,” Christy sighed.

“Maybe you always were.”

“The point is, we can't separate you now and we won’t even try.”

“So what does that mean?” Rhett finally spoke, trying to follow the conversational back and forth, asking the question that he knew could change his entire life. His voice was cracked and he knew he sounded desperate, but he didn’t bother to hide it. Everyone in this room had seen him at his worst and stuck by him anyway. He just hoped they’d continue to stick by him, when all he’d done was destroy their lives.

“It means that we're gonna have to deal with this mess,” Christy was blunt and Link winced. She squeezed his hand and he finally looked up from the floor to meet her eyes. As one single tear made its way down his cheek, it was Rhett who spoke first.

“Are you leaving us?” He asked, knowing that while his wording might be weird with the strange pluralisation, he knew if one was leaving, the other would too. It was the way of their lives. There was no separating the two couples right now, as entangled as they were.

Rhett couldn’t bear to think that maybe his stupid decisions had ruined not only his own marriage, but Link’s too.

He had directed his question to Jessie, who simply shook her head and he let out a breath of relief that deflated his entire body.

She saw it, but she knew that he shouldn’t be too relieved yet. They had a long way to go and she knew it was going to hurt them all, but maybe it would be for the best.

Link knew there was one thing that had yet to be addressed. “Are you making us choose?” Link finally asked, breaking his silence. To everyone’s surprise, Christy gave a quick, breathless laugh, before she answered.

“God knows, we thought about it. I think we were both so angry and scared that we almost walked away a hundred times. Hell, I’m still angry. If it was anyone but Rhett, some fan or a random stranger, I would’ve walked away without a second thought.” Link nodded, not doubting that for a second.

Christy had known Rhett for as long as she'd known Link. He was as close to her as any of her family and she loved him. She hated him for finally giving in and starting this, but at the same time, she couldn’t really blame him. They’d held out for too long and maybe it had been inevitable.

She hated that she couldn’t hate the giant idiot. It would be so easy to blame him completely and kick him out of their lives, keeping Link all to herself. But Link had never been just hers and she hated that a little bit too.

“But we can't just walk away. We love you. And as long as you want us, we're here.” Jessie leaned in to give Rhett a kiss on the top of his head. He made a sound that she wasn’t sure if it was a sob or a laugh, so she patted his knee and pulled back, giving him some space.

She could tell he was overwhelmed and needed time to think alone, but if they didn’t get this all laid out, it would explode in their faces and she was terrified that none of their relationships would survive.

Out of all of this, Jessie had realised for the first time just how entwined their lives had become. Not a day went by that they weren’t talking, weren’t making plans for holidays, for dinners, living their lives not even thinking about the fact they were basically one extended family.

And just like any family, they went through their rough patches. They fought, but at the end of the day, they were still there. They couldn’t leave if they tried. They really did all love each other. Maybe not the ways they should, but love took so many forms. Right now she despised that. She wanted to cut and run, talking Rhett out of whatever this was and saving their lives as they were now.

But she couldn’t and it made her so angry, but she had no one to blame, so she forced herself to stay calm. If she’d found them kissing, without having talked to Rhett first, she was fairly sure she would have screamed and thrown things, at the very least. But they’d been more honest than she could have ever expected and so she’d had the time to think it through, and realise that this was bigger than any one of them, or even than any two of them. God, she hated how inevitable it all seemed.

“What?” Link blinked at them, eyes wide and confused.

“I guess it all comes down to this: what do you guys want? What is this?” Jessie gestured between them and tried to give Link a reassuring smile. She knew it was a weak attempt at a smile, but she didn’t hate him, just as Christy didn’t hate Rhett and she wanted him to know that. It might take a while, but she hoped they’d be OK.

“I don't know. This is so new. We don’t…” Link glanced at Rhett and trailed off. He looked uncomfortable at having become the male spokesperson on their feelings and decisions, clearly just as dazed as Rhett was.

“We know. We know you haven't had a chance to talk yet. We don't wanna put too much pressure on you and y’all need some time to figure it out for yourselves.” Jessie directed this at Rhett, who looked back up at her. His eyes were red, but there weren’t any more tears, which she was strangely proud of.

“But right now, we need to let you know where we stand,” Christy took the lead again, “We can't come second. We can't just sit here and wait until you decide that you don't need us anymore.”

Last night both the women had confided in each other their worst fears – that the men wouldn’t need anyone else if they had each other. They’d always felt that they were the only things keeping the men’s feet on the ground as they got lost together in their dreams for the future.

They were the Earth, real and stable beneath their feet, while the other man was their sun and stars, their hopes and dreams.

Why would someone stay on the ground when they could explore the infinite, stunning cosmos?

Would the women ever have been enough for them?

“That won't happen,” Link interrupted, trying to put all the reassurance and profound love he could into taking both her hands in his and looking at her so sincerely.

“It better not,” She quipped, threat thinly veiled, squeezing his hands to know let him that she understood. He appreciated it and let her know with a half-smile of his own.

“Here's our conditions,” Jessie started, nodding at Christy, who took the first point and directed it at Rhett, who had been watching the conversation in baffled silence.

“You've always spent way too much time together. That won't change,” Christy said. The women knew they couldn’t stop them from being constantly in contact. They were ‘Rhett-n-Link’ not Rhett and Link, two separate entities. That’s how it had always been and how it always would be. Besides their relationship, it was their livelihoods too.

If the men decided to continue this path they’d stumbled down, they’d have to work out some type of time share arrangement, but that was hardly new. In fact, it felt like all the years of compromising over filming schedules, writing retreats and holiday plans had just been a warm up for this.

“You've always loved each other. That won't change,” Jessie added. Whether any of them had fully accepted what that meant before or not, it had always been true.

Whether this would change their love remained to be seen, but what Jessie did see was that this had always been simmering under the surface.

“We will give you time and space and accept whatever it is you decide for your relationship, no matter what it is you choose.” This pronouncement took the air from the room as the men finally understood and accepted that the women not only weren’t leaving, they were actually giving permission for whatever this was or whatever it could be. It gave both Rhett and Link a deep sense of happiness and overwhelming love for the women they had chosen to spend their lives with. The gratitude they felt was intense and it made them both tear up again.

“We just need to know that nothing is going to change for us. We can support you, but we need you to be honest always,” Christy had begun to cry, and when Rhett turned to Jessie again, to make sure that she agreed to this, he could see tears shining in her eyes too. Despite that, she nodded and gave him a smile that took his breath away and he fell in love with her all over again.

Maybe the women weren’t happy about it and it would take time, but they could adjust to this, like they’d adjusted to all the changes in their bizarre lives. They had hope they could do this.

“And I'm scared. I'm scared you'll decide you don't need us anymore,” Christy confessed. Link let out a dry sob and pulled her into a hug.

“We've always felt like we had less history than you two, because you shared your entire lives. When we first started dating, I remember thinking that I was jealous of you,” Jessie directed this at Link, who had pulled back from Christy, “Of your friendship, maybe. Or the fact you knew each other better than I knew Rhett, even after we were married. Maybe I knew, even then. Or I should've,” She shrugged and Link inched across the couch to take one of Jessie’s hands in his, clasping it and trying to let her know that he was sorry. She gave him a watery smile to let him know that he wasn’t quite forgiven yet, but he would be.

“I can't stand the thought that you'll finally close yourselves off from the rest of the world and live in your own little bubble. It would be so easy. Y’all always had your own language,” Christy moved to sit shoulder to shoulder on the table with Jessie, bringing the two couples close enough that they were all within arm’s reach.

“We won’t. I promise,” Rhett replied, over the heads of the dark haired two, both of whom he loved so fiercely.

“I don’t know that you can promise anything right now, hun,” Christy giggled and Rhett conceded the point with a nod and a sad, wry smile.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” He offered. It wasn’t directed at any of them. It was directed at all of them.

“Don’t be sorry. Despite how mad I have been, and how mad I think I still am, what you two have… It’s nothing to apologise for, even we can see that,” Jessie said, taking one of Rhett’s hands in the one not taken by Link.

“I think you guys need to talk, so why don’t you stay here together tonight? We’ll be back tomorrow and we can talk again,” Christy got up, placing one hand on Link’s shoulder. He looked up at her with open adoration and she loved him more in that second than she ever had before. She dropped a quick kiss on his lips as she went to move away.

“Are you sure?” Rhett asked, still clinging to Jess’s hand that was clasped tightly in his.

“Don’t give us a reason to regret this, OK?” Jessie confirmed, standing up and releasing both of the hands in hers, following Christy’s lead in giving Rhett a quick kiss.

“Are you OK with this?” Rhett needed to ask Christy. He didn’t know what would happen when they left, but he didn’t know that they could be trusted. Not yet. He needed confirm that they knew the risks.

“I will be, alright?” She smiled at him.

The women packed an overnight bag for Jessie and were gone in under 5 minutes.

*****

Once the women had left, the men sat in silence. It wasn’t that they were uncomfortable. They just needed the time and space to figure out what was going on. The shock and the choices they had tp make were a lot to handle.They both had a lot to digest.

“So I was thinking, if we move the filming of the Will It? episodes to Friday, we can have the weekends off to recover from whatever disgusting thing they concoct for us to eat,” Link rambled.

“Link,” Rhett sighed. Link was almost too predictable sometimes. Of course, Link would try to distract them from the real issue here. Link was the ‘take-action’ guy. Rhett was the ‘hey-wait-I-think-we-should-think-this-through’ guy yet again. It was comforting in a way, to know that they could rely on themselves to always fall back into their old patterns. Maybe it wasn’t too late to restore the default now, ignore everything that had happened in the past few weeks and go back to blissful ignorance.

Rhett had a feeling it wouldn’t be that simple, especially with the girls pushing them to resolve whatever this was, but he thought that if they did need to make that choice, they could do it.

If Link made the choice, he could do it.

It would break his heart, but if it’s what they needed to all be OK, he would do it or die trying.

“To be honest, I wonder why we haven’t done this before,” Link continued, unfazed by Rhett’s exasperation.

“Link, stop. We need to sort this out,” He turned to his friend and took his hand, the one that Jessie had been holding not 10 minutes ago.

“I know.” Silence descended on them again.

“They’ve given us about 12 hours to figure out what we wanna do here.” Twelve hours seemed generous, but considering they had both had about 40 years to mull it all over and still hadn’t come to any type of concrete decision, twelve hours also seemed pitifully short.

“They aren’t making us choose, are they?” Link asked, voice small and unsure.

“It seems like it,” Rhett confirmed.

“So they’re OK with us sleepin’ together?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Is that what this is?” Rhett asked, hurt, but trying not to show it.

“Rhett, don’t be an idiot,” Link rolled his eyes and Rhett wanted to yell at him. Instead, he took a deep breath, knowing that talking about emotions was neither of their strong suits, and tried a different tack.

“Link, you haven’t exactly been forthcoming with what you’re feeling here. I’m gonna need you to be a little more explicit, ‘cause I’m not gonna ruin my marriage over a few kisses and some meaningless sex, OK?”

At the mention of sex, Link’s brain had a minor meltdown. Of course that was where all this had been leading, back several weeks ago when Rhett had mauled him, they had practically been dry humping. But they’d never discussed it and while he’d thought about it – good God had he thought about it – this is the closest they’d come to acknowledging all that they had always carefully avoided admitting.

He wanted it so bad it was burning him from the inside out. But that wasn’t the point here.

“Rhett, this isn’t meaningless. Nothing with you and me could ever be meaningless,” Link tugged at the hand in his and pulled them closer together on the couch, as close as they had been before the girls walked in on them.

“I love you, Link.”

“I love you too, Rhett,” Link finally said it and it should have felt momentous. It should have felt like the end of something, or the beginning. But it wasn’t. He’d said it countless times before and he realised that he’d always meant it the same way he meant it now.

Rhett’s smile was a shy, joyous thing, making his cheeks ball up and go pink and Link couldn’t resist leaning over and kissing him again. And again. And again.

Rhett eventually pulled away and laughed. Link giggled with him, before stopping him with yet another kiss, to celebrate the fact that they hadn’t ruined everything.

They could feel the weight lifting off their shoulders and they felt younger and more energised than they had in decades.

“We’re s’posed to be talkin’,” Rhett argued, when Link had made his way down to lick and bite at his throat. They had turned until Rhett was stretched out on the couch, Link straddling his hips, but he wasn’t grinding or moving at all. It was driving Rhett crazy.

“I want this, you want this, the girls have given us permission. Give me one reason I should stop,” Link countered with a smirk that magically erased every argument that Rhett had against this.

The front door opened with laughter and the men froze as their youngest sons froze in the doorway. They had been caught, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was the second scene I envisioned when this story first came to me, but it was by far the hardest to write. 
> 
> I've lost all sense of detachment and perspective, so please let me know if it's terrible or anything is glaringly wrong. 
> 
> If you're still reading, you're a superstar and I would like to say thank you. I never expected anyone to read this, so the fact that anyone is, seems insane to me. Your comments make me want to write, so much that I have 3 more stories I'm working on and another 4 ideas. If you're reading this as soon as I put this up, or 5 years from now, feel free to leave a comment and spur my writing on. I appreciate it. 
> 
> One more chapter to go, which isn't finished yet, but will probably be just as long as this one. It might not be up next week, but should be by the week after. If not, yell at me. I have a tumblr now, so you can come bother me there maybe? I'm at rhinkitdontsinkit. Dunno how to do the link thing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's crunch time for Rhett and Link. They've been caught out by their youngest sons and it's forcing their hand. Will they go through with their relationship?  
> How will Shepard and Lando react?  
> The final chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. It means more to me than I can say. You guys are the best.
> 
> I hope this ending doesn't disappoint you all?

The four men stared at each other for a few seconds, until Lando finally broke the stalemate.

“Dad?” He asked, clearly confused and sounding so young.

Both Rhett and Link were busy freaking out. All their kids had seen them doing some pretty strange stuff throughout the years. Could they shrug this off as practicing something for the show?

Perhaps they could have laughed it off, if Link had immediately jumped off Rhett’s lap and they’d shared a good laugh. But Link hadn’t moved, mostly because if he did, it would become impossible to deny that this was anything other than exactly what it appeared to be. The tenting in both men’s jeans ensured that. So instead, they stayed glued together on the couch.

“You boys are home early,” Link commented, trying not to sound too accusatory or too guilty. He failed on both counts.

“It’s 12:30,” Shephard answered with a ‘how did you not know that?’ kind of attitude. It was defensive and aggressive and spelled trouble.

“Mom said to be home by midnight,” Lando added.

“Oh,” Was the only thing Link could think to say. He wondered desperately if it was safe for him to get off his best friend’s crotch, but he couldn’t exactly look and check if things had calmed down.

“Where is mom?” Lando asked, looking around as if she was hiding somewhere.

“She and Jessie are staying at our house tonight,” Link tried to make it sound like a normal thing, like it wasn’t the first time it’d ever happened. Shepard wasn’t buying it.

“Why?” He asked and Link didn’t know how to respond to that. He glanced down at Rhett who seemed to have completely shut down and who looked back at him with abject fear.

Link considered his options. He could lie and say it was so they could work, but it would be an obvious lie and make them look guilty as hell. He could tell the half truth and say it was so they could talk, but did he say what they were there to talk about? Shepard would ask. And it obviously went further than talking, so again, the boys wouldn’t just accept that.

But his last option was to tell them the whole truth, that it was so they could be together, but how did you explain to your teenage sons that their mothers had basically just given you permission to sleep with your best friend and the man that you’d been in love with for the vast majority of your life? And really, the girls hadn’t exactly given them permission. They’d given them the time and space to think and talk it through, but they had abused that by almost immediately jumping on each other like animals.

He was between a rock and a hard place and he had no idea what to say or do here.

Luckily, Rhett seemed to have collected himself and sat up on his elbows, looking at the confused boys in the doorway.

“Listen, guys. It’s complicated, OK?”

“Complicated? What’s complicated?” Shep tried to sound innocent, but there was anger underneath every word. It looked like he wanted to play it dumb and make his dad explain exactly what it was they’d walked into. It was a move straight out of Link’s playbook.

“Shep, Lan, it’s late, OK? Can we talk about this tomorrow?” Rhett asked, sighing.

“No. What the fuck is complicated here? Are you cheating on mom with Link? Is this why mom left you?” Shepard had gone straight from shock to anger and Lando put a hand on his friend’s arm, trying to calm him down and letting him know that Lando would hold him back if he tried anything stupid.

“No, he’s not. Don’t speak to your father that way,” Link stood off the couch, finally confident he could do so without embarrassing either of them further. Rhett likewise sat up and placed his hand on Link’s arm. Lando and Rhett were the calm ones here, with Link and Shepard the types to run into conflict, disregarding all danger in doing so.

“I’ll speak to him however I want, asshole,” Link glared and wanted to fire back, but Rhett’s hand tightened on his arm, “How long has this been going on?” Shepard demanded.

“About 36 hours?” Rhett answered, looking to Link for confirmation.

Link shrugged and added, “I suppose so. Maybe 2 months. Or 40 years. I don’t know exactly what we’re counting from here.”

“I’m counting from when you started fucking!”

“Then never,” Rhett answered, standing to situate himself in front of Link, both to protect Link from Shepard and Shepard from Link. Not that they’d actually come to physical blows, but they could both do some serious verbal damage and this situation was already complicated enough, without this escalating.

Shepard scoffed like he didn’t believe that for a second.

“Listen, your mom, both your mothers, know what’s happening, more than you do. You don’t get to be angry on their behalf, OK? If you wanna be mad, go ahead and be mad, but don’t you dare judge us or accuse us again, got it?” Rhett looked down at the boys in the doorway. His quiet, seething anger was worse than Link’s explosive temper.

Shepard looked like he wanted to start screaming again, but Lando shut him up with an elbow to the ribs.

“Dad, is it OK if I stay here tonight?” Lando asked and Link looked taken aback by the calm acceptance of his son. Lando had always been the most sensitive of his children, content to sit back and watch than be the centre of attention.

“Of course you can stay here, Lan. The spare room is made up for you already,” Rhett answered with a small smile, more than a little glad that he had another level headed person backing him up.

“We’re just gonna head up to bed, OK?” Lando started to pull Shepard backwards out of the room.

“Lando, Shepard, don’t tell anyone yet, OK?” Link begged.

“We won’t, I promise,” Lando agreed. Shepard looked like he wanted to argue some more, but Lando shut him up with a look and Shepard relented with a glare at his father and Link.

The men waited until the boys had gone upstairs before they both collapsed back on the couch.

“That went well,” Link said sarcastically.

“Shut up,” Rhett elbowed him, “All things considered it could have been much worse.”

“If they’d come in ten minutes later…” Link gave Rhett a wink and all the remaining tension fled from the room as they descended into whispered giggles. They didn’t want the boys to hear them giggling and assume anything, so they made sure to keep it down.

“Shit just got a thousand times more difficult, didn’t it?” Rhett asked when they finally calmed down. Link sighed.

“It sure did.” They hadn’t counted on the kids knowing yet. Maybe they’d never counted on the kids knowing. But now that Shepard and Lando knew, they couldn’t keep it a secret from the others, even if they’d wanted to. They could be upstairs texting their siblings right now, opening a can of worms that could never be closed again.

“It’s getting late. Maybe we should get some sleep. The girls will be back tomorrow and I think we need to be ready for a long discussion with them and the kids.”

“Where am I sleeping?” Link asked. With Shepard home, his room was occupied. With Lando staying, the spare room was taken. Locke’s room had been converted into a second office for Jessie. That left only one other option.

“Guess you’ll have to bunk in with me, brother,” Rhett leaned over to give him a kiss, but pulled back quickly, adding, “But no funny business, OK?”

“No promises,” Link pulled him in for another kiss.

*****

The men barely slept.

Not because they’d stayed up all night making out or anything else like that. Not that they didn’t want to. But because Link was very aware that he was in Jess’ territory, in her bed with her husband. He respected her too much to desecrate her space like that. At least not without her explicit approval.

Besides which, with the boys down the hall, they couldn’t relax.

Instead, they stayed up talking through the various ways they could tell their wives, kids and friends. Who should they tell and when? Would they ever be able to be fully honest and tell the beasts?

When they ran out of things to talk about and they’d exhausted the anxiety, they did indulge in a few sweet kisses, but they mostly just held each other, allowing themselves to just enjoy being together and having the space to think and reflect without the pressure to talk if they didn’t want to.

By the time they finally fell asleep, it was just past 3am.

*****

Rhett woke up first, when the sun was barely peeking through the curtains. He figured it must be around 6 in the morning. He was tempted to check his phone to be sure, but knew the light from the screen and the inexorable pull to social media meant that he wouldn’t get back to sleep.

So instead, he flipped himself over. They’d drifted apart during the night and Link was spread out on Jessie’s side of the bed. His hair was a dishevelled mess, he had bags under his eyes from the late night and excess stress, and he was breathing heavily enough to be easily audible. But he was gorgeous.

Rhett thought back on all the other times they’d shared a bed. There’d been so many. He’d never let himself really see Link, lying beside him. He’d drawn an invisible curtain down the centre of the bed, carefully never straying or glancing over it. Now, he could look. His heart had grown another size, being able to finally show Link he loved him.

Rhett hadn’t gotten cold feet before his wedding. But before both of his sons were born, he’d freaked out. Could he be a good father? What could he teach his sons? How could he show them happiness when he didn’t even know what happiness was, stuck in a dead end job that he’d never even wanted?

But as he’d held first Locke, then Shepard, he knew he’d been a fool. Those two taught him what real happiness was. He could’ve been a sewerage worker and been the happiest man on earth, coming home to his little family. They had their moments of driving him absolutely insane, rocking them to sleep late into the night, trying to figure out what each of their cries meant. Hell, even a few years ago, he would happily have thrown them out of the house, those independent, selfish teenage boys. But he remembered himself at that age and forgave them, because he loved them unconditionally and more deeply than he could ever explain.

Locke had taken all of his love. He’d loved Jessie with all of his heart, then Locke came along and he grew another heart, the heart of a father. He’d worried that he wouldn’t have the space for a third heart, worried that Shepard wouldn’t get the same love. But his heart had grown again and his ribs had almost burst with the joy he’d felt.

He realised now, he’d always had a hidden heart, one with Link’s name on it. It’d been locked away and deprived the blood and oxygen to grow and thrive like he’d given the others. If he acknowledged it, it was to call it the love of a brother. But he had always known that it wasn’t true.

He drifted back to sleep, smile on his face as he watched Link’s chest rising and falling, better at relaxing him than any white noise ever could be.

*****

Link woke up at 7am, the sun streaming through the gap in the curtains, landing directly over his left eye. He groaned and rolled over, only to be greeted with the sight of his best friend, sleeping like the dead. Rhett’s long curls were spread out over the pillow. His chest, which’d been partially uncovered when Link had rolled over, was shining gold in the morning light, freckles and moles just begging to be explored. He looked breathtaking and Link wanted to take a photo or twenty, but doubted he could do the view justice.

He watched as Rhett dreamed with a small smile on his face and wondered what he was dreaming about.

As cliché and sappy as it sounded, Link felt like he was living in a dream.

The few occasions he’d let himself dream about Rhett like this, he’d imagined waking up beside him. It was a familiar scene, because they’d lived it before. But in his dreams, he was allowed to stare, allowed to touch.

The fact that he could now, was more than Link could bear. Laughter threatened to break free as he revelled in that fact. He wanted to dance, wanted to shout to the world that he was in love. It had been a long time since he’d been a giddy idiot in the first blooms of love.

The love he shared with Christy was deep. It was an understanding of another person like he’d never imagined. They had gone through so much together. But every trial, every fight, had just brought them closer and he loved her more now than he had at the beginning, because she had proven that she would stick with him, no matter what. A fact she’d reinforced last night. Their love was comfort and security and home.

The love he felt for Rhett was so different.

Christy was like an old pair of shoes. Which, OK, that sounded bad, even in the privacy of his own head. But she was like a favorite pair, a pair that’d been walked miles in, they fit perfectly, they’re supportive and they’ve been worn to so many important places and times that he doesn’t even have to think as he slips them on.

Rhett was something else. He was like a favorite old pair that had been outgrown or worn down. Again, that sounded bad. Link wasn’t too good at the romantic metaphors. He was making himself cringe.

It’s like having a pair that he’s had forever, but they’ve just gotten too beaten up. But they’re a classic, like a pair of black Converse. All he has to do is pop into a shop and he has a brand new pair. They’re not the same. But they’re the same.

Suddenly, he and Rhett had outgrown pretending they didn’t love each other and now, despite being through so much together, everything is brand new. The experience of waking up next to him wasn’t new, but it felt like the first time.

*****

Rhett woke again to the feeling of being watched. He opened his eyes and met Link’s baby blues. They smiled lazily at each other, just happy to enjoy the moment, before the sound of the front door opening banished any residual sleep, completely waking them both as they hurried to get dressed and ready for the day.

When they made their way downstairs 5 minutes later, Jessie and Christy were sat on the couch. They looked far too chipper and awake and the men envied them. They greeted their husbands with wide smiles and any thought that last night had been a dream evaporated. They were here and they still loved them. It didn’t make any sense, but they didn’t dare question it.

“Sleep well?” Christy asked, and Link barely resisted rolling his eyes at her. They looked like zombies and they knew it.

“Not really. We were up most the night,” Rhett answered, collapsing on the couch beside his wife with an old man groan.

“Oh?” Jessie sounded guarded, like she didn’t want to know, but she had to know.

“We talked about all this ‘til about 3am. About the who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s and why’s,” Link rushed to assure her as he took his place beside Christy, taking her hand. Jess’s shoulders relaxed and he was glad they’d been stopped when they had. The women were being more patient and understanding than he would’ve been in their situation.

If they’d ruined it before they’d even had a chance to start, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

“And what did you decide?” Jessie looked between them.

Link nodded at Rhett, who answered for them.

“We’ve decided that as long as you’re OK with it, we’d like to explore this, whatever this is, between us. But if you ever change your mind, or it’s too much, we’ll stop. Whatever you want.”

“OK,” Christy took a deep breath. It was what they’d expected, but it was still a lot to have it confirmed and know that they were going to do this. Or try to do this.

“We’ll take it slow and only do what you’re comfortable with,” Rhett rushed on. Jessie reached over and patted Rhett’s knee, trying to calm him down.

“There’s some things that we are comfortable with and maybe there’s things that we aren’t comfortable with now, but it might change,” Christy warned.

“And there’s some things we probably will never be comfortable knowing,” Jessie added.

Link laughed at the look on Jessie's face and the idea of sharing the more intimate details with their wives. The idea seemed so awkward and entirely wrong that he couldn't help but to giggle nervously and a little hysterically. The others joined in, easing the tension that had surrounded them.

They all knew that this wasn’t going to be the last conversation. It wasn’t even going to be the last big conversation. It was going to take a lot of work and they would have to talk to each other. This was all so tenuous that one moment of non-communication or miscommunication could bring it all crashing down. They would need rules and boundaries and they needed to be clearly defined.

But for now, they’d reached a stable basis to build on and it was enough.

The boys apparently heard the laughter and appeared in the doorway, still in their pyjamas and unkempt. It was before midday on a Sunday, so the appearance of them immediately set off alarm bells for their mothers.

All four of their parents watched as they took in the scene of them all sitting on the couch together, laughing.

Shepard glared at his dad, and Rhett shared a panicked look with Link over their wives heads. Christy saw the look and looked at them, confused.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mom,” Shepard’s serious tone pulled Jessie’s attention and her mothering instincts killed the relief she’d felt only seconds before, “I’m sorry.”

“What happened, honey? Did you have a car accident last night? Are you hurt?” Her mind had immediately gone to the worst case scenarios.

“No,” Lando shook his head.

"What is it then, baby?" Christy asked.

"Dad and Rhett," Lando hesitated and stopped, looking to Shepard for guidance.

"What?" Jessie turned on her husband. Rhett looked guilty as hell.

"They were making out on the couch," Shepard was quick to add, angrily.

All things considered, Rhett and Link were lucky it was their two youngest and calmest children that'd found them. If it'd been Locke and Lincoln, all hell would've broken loose and some things would've actually ended up broken. Maybe a nose or a fist.

"What?" Jessie asked again.

"We weren't exactly making out," Rhett mumbled half-heartedly.

"Seriously?" Christy turned to Link, who shrugged. It'd been stupid, but it'd seemed like a solid plan at the time.

"Sorry," He offered. Jessie scoffed.

"Not even... What? 2 hours?" She asked.

"Maybe 1?" Link looked to Rhett for confirmation and got nothing but a bashful grin in return.

"You knew?" Shepard was gobsmacked.

"It looks like we'd better ring the other kids. I don't want to have to repeat myself five times," Christy sighed and picked up her phone.

"It'd technically only be four, since both Shepard and Lando are here together," Rhett corrected. Jessie glared at him and he shut up again, not wanting to incur her wrath any more than he already had. Now was not the time for his know-it-all routine.

“I wasn’t exactly wanting to have this conversation yet,” Jessie sighed, pulling out her phone too.

“Sorry,” The men chorused. Their wives gave them long suffering smiles and put through the calls.

*****

The kids took it better than any of them could've expected. Though that wasn’t exactly saying much.

That it was their moms doing most of the talking and that they were accepting of it, made all the difference. It meant that the kids couldn't claim adultery, like Shepard and Lando had initially assumed. Of course, no one blamed them for thinking that. It was a natural and logical reaction to finding your dad kissing anyone else but your mom.

That their moms weren’t angry took a lot of wind out of their sails and they didn’t know how to react. Anger would have been easy. Trying to accept this wasn’t, but they’d have to try.

The fact it was their dads meant the kids kind of doubted it was all new, like their parents claimed it was. They’d all seen the pictures, the speculation and fiction. They’d grown up with the idea of them together, but they’d just never taken it seriously. They’d always been almost freakishly close and they’d always laughed it off.

Now the kids almost couldn’t quite believe it hadn't secretly been going on for years, now they knew that it wasn’t all just a figment of the fans collective imagination. How could they have loved each other like this for that long and never acted on it?

Maybe they’d never fully believe it.

All four of the boys were having a tough time accepting it, still too young and rebellious to listen to their parents. Even Lando, who had been the calmest, still looked at them with suspicion.

Lilly was the most accepting, a fact no one found surprising. She’d always been pretty emotionally switched on and Link was proud of how she came to their defence, all of their defences. She was like the referee and, after all the boys had hung up or headed back upstairs to go back to sleep, she assured her parents she’d do her best to talk them around. Or at least be there for them to talk to. But even she wasn’t 100% on board.

There was yelling and tears and anger and confusion. But the adults believed that in time they'd be OK. It wasn't a normal situation, but their lives never had been normal. The kids were smart and strong and were open minded. They’d come around. Eventually.

Exhausted and with nothing more to say for now, the couples parted ways with hugs and reassurances.

*****

When the Neal’s arrived home, they collapsed on the couch, holding each other and breathing in the silent calm they hadn’t enjoyed in what felt like forever.

“What if we decide a week, a month, a year down the road that we can't do this?” Christy asked, voice almost lost to Link’s collarbone.

“Then it’d hurt and it’d be difficult, but we'd stop. We made our vows to you girls. You come first,” He didn’t even hesitate. Her little giggle surprised him.

“You made your vows to each other years before you met me. But it's enough to know you'd put me first. Even if I don't know that I believe it, it's enough.” He held her tight and thanked his lucky stars again that she’d chosen him.

They continued to sit there until Link began to drift off to sleep, the toll of missing sleep and emotional conversations catching up to him.

It wasn’t perfect, but having the two people he loved, the two he was in love with, loving him back, and his soul finally free to tell the truth to them and his kids, pulled Link into the most blissful sleep he could remember.

*****

Once the McLaughlin’s had the house to themselves again, Shepard and Lando having headed out who knows where, they sat on the couch again, hand in hand.

“Can I ask you something?” Jessie asked, looking Rhett directly in the eye. He almost panicked, but after everything they’d weathered this last few months, he was more secure in their relationship than he’d ever been, as crazy as that sounded.

“Of course you can, baby.” He squeezed her hands for comfort and support. Now was not the time to hide anything from each other.

“Is it because I wasn’t enough? Wasn’t good enough? Didn’t love you enough?” She didn’t sound upset. She was as secure in them as he was, despite the fact that he’d abandoned her and fallen in love with someone else. It didn't make sense, but she knew that he loved her as much as he could. He just loved someone else as well.

She was more forgiving and loving than most other people could ever dream of being. A fact Rhett didn’t for a second take for granted.

“Baby, you’re more than enough. You’re the only woman I’ll ever love.”

She laughed at his choice of words and added the part she knew came next.

“And he’d the only man you’ll ever love?”

He grinned at her, bashful and caught out.

“He’s the only man I ever have loved,” He confessed softly, still afraid to say it out loud. But they all knew it. He wouldn’t have put his life on the line for anything less.

They sat in silence, contemplating their crazy world.

She nodded, accepting that he was telling the truth and he wasn’t going to leave again. She wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. Not again.

*****

Link pulled up to the McLaughlin house early the next morning. Jessie waved as Rhett climbed into the car and both men waved back, one adding a blown kiss, causing the other to snort.

It wasn’t until they were halfway to the studio that they realised their fingers were entwined on the centre console between them. They hadn’t even noticed, and when they did, Link couldn’t help but tug on them at the next red light to bring Rhett in for a good morning kiss, accompanied by a chuckle.

They didn’t need words between them that morning, like most mornings. They knew how the other was feeling, because they felt the same.

Both men had forgone their workouts in favour of going straight to work. After the tumult of the last few months, they had a lot to make up to their crew and their fans. It was time to make amends and begin the next chapter.

And, after only a few hours away from each other, they were anxious to check in.

As they got out of the car, Link stretched and winced, a move that Rhett noticed immediately.

“What’s wrong? You hurt?” He rushed to Link’s side, but didn’t dare touch him, in case he hurt him. And now they were something, he was a little overcautious, worried someone might read something into even the most innocent of touches.

“Yeah. I’m getting too old to sleep on the couch,” Link shrugged, flinching when his back twinged again.

“Christy made you sleep on the couch?” Rhett had thought they’d been in an OK place when they’d parted. He was afraid that maybe she’d changed her mind and all of this possibility would be ripped away from them again. And if it was serious enough that he’d have to sleep on the couch, instead of in one of their spare beds, it must have been one hell of a fight. But that wasn’t like Christy at all, so he kept the panic to a minimum.

“No, of course not,” Link laughed. He bumped his shoulder lightly into Rhett’s, “I accidently fell asleep on the couch when we got home. Apparently I need more than 4 hours sleep.”

“Oh,” Rhett let out a sigh of utter relief, “You really can sleep anywhere, can’t you?”

“It’s a talent.”

They entered the studio and everything was abuzz with noise and laughter and for the first time in months, they took a second to appreciate their empire. Link linked his hand with Rhett, who gave him a ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ look, but at the sight of Link’s smile, he relaxed again.

They weren’t going to hide themselves from anyone any more. Maybe they weren’t ready to yell it from the rooftops or tell the fans, but their family knew, and the crew would find out sooner or later anyway. There’d be no announcement, because there didn’t need to be. People would realise when they realised and while it’d taken Rhett and Link 45 years to figure it out, they knew it wouldn’t take long for everyone else.

Life was complicated and messy and it wasn’t going to be easy, but they had each other and the support of everyone they loved. They were the luckiest men on earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A happy ending? I think so. 
> 
> This thing kinda got away from me. It now clocks in at over 25,000 words. Um.... Whoops?  
> I have a few little bits and bobs I haven't included in the main story that I'd like to write at some point, so this might not be the end of this universe. Or maybe it will be if no one wants more than this. It's pretty neatly wrapped, but there's a few loose ends that could be tied. I'm open to suggestions too. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's read this. It's been a labour of love to write but a real pain in the arse too. Thanks to everyone who commented and inspired me to get each chapter done. I couldn't've done it without you.


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